Context

It has been long established that reducing blood pressure with pharmacotherapeutic agents prevents adverse cardiovascular disease events, but questions remain about which patients warrant antihypertensive therapy. Historically, this has been determined by the level of blood pressure alone. However, the evidence suggests that individuals most likely to benefit from blood pressure lowering therapy are those at greatest absolute risk of these events. Ettehad and colleagues have conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the extent to which treatment effects differ by baseline blood pressure and the presence of comorbidities, as well as a comparison of drug class efficacy.