Nearly one-third of the primary care physicians in a study of patients with uncontrolled hypertension saw no need to change the treatment of patients with high or very high cardiovascular risk factors, according to Spanish researchers.
In their study of 1,413 patients with a mean age of just over 65 and uncontrolled hypertension, 34.5 percent were found to be at very high risk of cardiovascular disease and 29.4 percent at high risk.
Many also had a variety of other cardiovascular risk factors, with more than half of the patients overweight, more than half with high cholesterol, and four in ten with diabetes. In addition, two in ten had enlarged hearts and one-in-eight had microalbuminuria, an indicator of subclinical cardiovascular disease.
But even though the blood pressure of these patients was not controlled with treatment (pressure higher than 140/90 mmHg or higher than 130/80 mmHg in diabetics), nearly one-in-three of the primary care physicians felt no change in treatment was required. And just over half of the doctors asked patients to come in for a new control visit within 2-3 weeks.
“The results show that there is a significant lack of concern among primary care physicians about the importance of hypertension treatment in patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Antonio Coca of the Hypertension Unit at the Hospital Clínic of the University of Barcelona, Spain.
The findings were presented in New York City at the 21st Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension.
