Success in the treatment of hypertension: a status report.
BACKGROUND
Pharmacological intervention studies aimed at lowering elevated blood pressure have shown that stroke, and to a lesser degree coronary heart disease, morbidity and mortality are positively affected. These beneficial effects appear to have been obtained mainly with diuretics and beta-adrenoceptor blocking agents, as shown in a meta-analysis of 13 large prospective intervention trials in hypertension.
Benefits of pharmacological antihypertensive treatment were observed in the treatment of patients with malignant hypertension in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Many of these studies were conducted before diuretics became clinically available and long before the first reports of the antihypertensive effect of beta-blockers were published.


METHODS
Prospective intervention trials with newer antihypertensive agents such as calcium antagonists and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors are currently in progress. Three recently, open, retrospective case-control studies dealing with comparisons of various antihypertensive drug classes with regard to their effect on cardiovascular mortality have attracted interest.
Another question of considerable clinical importance is how far blood pressure should be lowered in order to extract the maximum benefit of treatment. This issue is currently being investigated.
Hansson
L
L
Department of Geriatrics, University of Uppsala, Sweden.
D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000187:drug effects; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy*
D000959:Antihypertensive Agents