Frequency and Prognosis of Treated Hypertensive Patients According to Prior and New Blood Pressure Goals

Abstract

United States and European guidelines have recommended new treatment goals for office blood pressure (BP). We examined 9784 hypertensives of the Spanish Ambulatory BP Monitoring (ABPM) registry with office BP treated to the prior goal (<140/90 mm Hg); and evaluated the frequency and all-cause mortality of 4 BP strata depending on whether or not they attained more conservative or new office BP goal (130-139/80-89 and <130/80 mm Hg, respectively) and whether or not BP was controlled according to ABPM criteria in the European and US guidelines (24-hour ambulatory BP <130/80 and <125/75 mm Hg, respectively). Whether achieving or not the new office BP goal, the total-mortality risk during a 5-year follow-up was only significantly higher than the reference (normal office BP and ABPM) when 24-hour ambulatory BP was above goal (hazard ratio from multivariable Cox models was in the range of 2.4-2.9; P<0.001). The frequency of patients achieving the new office BP goal was 34.4%, and the frequencies of those not achieving the ABPM goal were 31.6% and 53.7% using the 130/80 or the 125/75 ABPM goal, respectively. Mean office systolic BP was 129 mm Hg for patients not achieving the ABPM goal. In hypertensive patients controlled under prior office BP goal, the frequency of those achieving new office BP goal <130/80 was high, suggesting this goal can be attained. In addition, patients had a higher mortality risk only when ABPM was above goal despite having mean office systolic BP under control, a condition that was also common.

Keywords: blood pressure; goals; hypertension; mortality.