The poor control of blood pressure in patients with multiple risk factors highlights the need for both better blood pressure control and drug treatment that targets more than one risk factor.
Dr. J.C. Geller presented the today at the 16th European Meeting of Hypertension in Madrid, Spain.
The investigators extracted the data from patient records for the period of January 1998 to June 2005, and used the first and last patient visits to assess treatment goals stated in the 2003 ESH-ESC hypertension guidelines. Of the 155,187 patients with cardiovascular disease or diabetes, 64% had hypertension. Of these 100,055 patients with diabetes and hypertension, 27% had coronary artery disease and 54% had hyperlipidemia. At least 1 co-morbidity was found in 73% of the overall patient population.
Blood pressure reduction to less than 140/90 mmHg was not achieved in 69% of the hypertensive patients. In the 9% of patients with multiple risk factors (diabetes, hyperlipidemia, smoking, older age), at the last visit 85% had an LDL-C level greater than 100 mg/dL and 54% had LDL-C greater than 130 mg/dL.