Background: Treatment has a definitive impact on mortality in hypertension. The magnitude of blood pressure reduction, the type of drug used and the associated risk factors may modulate the effect of treatment on mortality.
Aim: To report the effects of treatment of essential hypertension, in a cohort followed for up to 26 years.
Patients and methods: A cohort of 1,172 essential hypertensive patients followed up to 26 years. Patients were treated with different antihypertensive drugs, alone or in combination (diuretics, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors) according to international rules and consensus. Subjects were followed until death or loss from follow-up. Blood pressure reduction was aimed to obtain figures near 140/90 mm Hg. Causes of death and complications were obtained from hospital records, phone and death certificates. Survival was studied using life tables (Kaplan Meier method and intention to treat analysis) and Cox proportional hazard analysis.
Results: Initial blood pressure dropped significantly from 181/109 to 154/92 mm Hg, p < 0.001. Mean follow-up time was 10.6 +/- 6.1 years. There were 143 cardiovascular deaths, 142 acute myocardial infarctions, 101 strokes, 83 subjects had cardiac failure and 49 had renal failure. The observed rates were 0.92% per year for cardiovascular mortality, 1.36% per year for coronary heart disease, 0.94% per year for stroke.
Conclusions: Our mortality rate is lower than that found in classical randomized studies but similar or slightly higher than the more recent ones. Morbidity rates were also very similar. Except for mortality rate, frequency of complications did not change in comparison to our previous report after 15 year of follow up. Aging did not seem to negatively influence mortality rates in adequately treated hypertensive patients.