This morning the National Institutes of Health announced that it halted a clinical trial on high blood pressure in order to share the results publicly right away. According to the initial study findings, managing high blood pressure so it falls below a specific blood pressure target significantly reduces rates of cardiovascular disease and lowers risk of mortality.
The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial, commonly called SPRINT, is the largest known study of its kind to examine how holding systolic blood pressure below the currently recommended level affects cardiovascular and kidney diseases.
For this trial, nearly 100 medical centers in the United States and Puerto Rico, including Stanford, recruited more than 9,300 participants age 50 and older for a study that involved carefully adjusting the amount or type of blood pressure medication to achieve a target systolic pressure of 120 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg).
As outlined in an NIH press release, the researchers found that reducing systolic pressure to 120 mm Hg or less, reduced rates of stroke, heart attacks, heart failure and other cardiovascular events by almost a third and reduced the risk of death by almost a quarter, compared to the target systolic pressure of 140 mm Hg.
"SPRINT addressed a fundamental question faced by internal medicine physicians, nephrologists, cardiologists and other specialists - that is, how low should our blood pressure target be?” said Glenn Chertow, MD, MPH, principal investigator for the Stanford site.
Although researchers have known for some time that lowering patients' blood pressure can improve survival rates and reduce their chances of having a stroke, heart disease or a kidney-related event, studies that link these benefits to a specific blood pressure were lacking. This is why the SPRINT study is so important.
"Before today there was no evidence from randomized clinical trials to demonstrate that lowering systolic blood pressure toward or below 120 mmHg was safe and effective," Chertow told me yesterday afternoon.
"Adoption of the approach learned from SPRINT could change medical practice and materially improve the public health," Chertow continued. "We're proud to have participated" in the study.
Previously: The importance of knowing your blood pressure level in preventing hypertension, Ultra-thin flexible device offers non-invasive method of monitoring heart health, blood pressure, Ask Stanford Med: Stanford interventional cardiologist taking questions on heart health and High-quality chocolate linked to lower risk of heart failure
Photo by World Bank Photo Collection