THE CLINICAL HETEROGENEITY OF HYPERTENSION

More than the character of the blood pressure elevation, the cardiovascular risk profile should be the prognostic guide for antihypertensive therapeutic decision-making. Hypertension tends to occur in association with other risk factors which augment the risk and need to be considered in evaluating the hazard of hypertension, the urgency for treatment, and the choice of treatment. Elevated blood pressure is often accompanied by blood lipid abnormality, obesity, electrocardiograph (ECG) abnormality, glucose intolerance, and elevated fibrinogen and hematocrit, all of which enhance the risk of cardiovascular sequelae of hypertension. Hypertensive patients at particularly increased risk of cardiovascular events are those with an increased total/HDL-cholesterol ratio, ECG abnormality, impaired glucose tolerance, or the cigarette smoking habit. The risk of a cardiovacular event among hypertensive patients varies over more than a 10-fold range depending on the number of these coexistent risk factors. Multivariate risk formulations are available to allow a composite estimate of the joint conditional probability of a cardiovascular outcome in hypertensive patients with multiple risk factors. Since some antihypertensive agents can adversely affect blood lipids, glucose tolerance, or uric acid values, the risk profile must also be taken into account in choosing the optimal antihypertensive therapy. Also, hypertension is commonly associated with angina, myocardial infarction, left ventricular hypertrophy, stroke, or cardiac failure. These too must be taken under consideration in judging the urgency for treatment and the choice of agents. Thus, hypertension is best regarded as a component of a cardiovascular risk profile in implementing optimal therapy and in assessing its efficacy.