The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC7) provided several new guidelines for hypertension prevention and management (Chobanian, 2004; Table 6). Some of the updates included:
- Thiazide-type diuretics should be used to treat most patients with uncomplicated hypertension, either alone or combined with drugs from other classes. Certain high-risk conditions are compelling indications for the initial use of other antihypertensive drug classes (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin-receptor blockers, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers)
- Most patients with hypertension will require two or more antihypertensive medications to achieve goal blood pressure (<140/90 mm Hg or <130/80 mm Hg for patients with diabetes or chronic kidney disease)
- If blood pressure is more than 20/10 mm Hg above goal, consideration should be given to initiating therapy with two agents, one of which usually should be a thiazide-type diuretic
- even in normotensive patients, further reduction of blood pressure should be contemplated unless they have a high grade arterial stenosis.
AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment