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Hypertension

Lower or higher blood-pressure targets for high-risk patients?

Blood-pressure lowering has undisputable benefits, but the optimal values to which blood pressure should be lowered are debated. Interpretation of recent trials is controversial, and post-hoc analyses to investigate the inflection point of the curve relating events to blood pressure are disputed. Meta-analyses of randomized trials and prospective, cohort studies might guide decision-making.

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Figure 1: Effect of blood-pressure lowering on cardiovascular outcomes.

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Acknowledgements

The help of Donatella Mihalich and Paulina Wijnmaalen (Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy) in preparing the manuscript and Figure is gratefully acknowledged.

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Correspondence to Alberto Zanchetti.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Zanchetti, A. Lower or higher blood-pressure targets for high-risk patients?. Nat Rev Cardiol 13, 637–638 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2016.165

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