BLOOD PRESSURE MEASUREMENTS IN HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS OVER 60 YEARS OLD IN A PRIMARY CARE HEALTH CENTER NEAR BY A BIG CITY: WHAT ABOUT THE THERAPEUTIC GOALS?

Abstract

Objective: Until today we have no universal worldwide definition about the value to be used to determine if the patient have arterial hypertension or not, even worse in the elderly, such an special population with all the risk arround to not have blood pressure (BP) under control. It is that according to differents guidelines that we relies on for diagnosis and treatment. For example, for the European Society of Cardiology/European Society of Hypertension (ESC/ESH) is defined as a systolic BP (SBP) greater than or equal to 140 mmHg or a diastolic BP (DBP) greater than or equal to 90 mmHg, Against to the American College of Cardiology and the American Association of Cardiology (ACC/AHA) that define as a normal BP less than 120/80 mmHg. Meanwhile for the Argentine Society of Cardiology (SAC) BP would be less than 130 and/or 85 mmHg. To determine if the hypertensive population that participated in this study meets the therapeutic goals proposed in the guidelines or not. Design and method: We included patients older than 60 years old previusly diagnosed with arterial hypertension who where attended between march and june in 2022, retrospectively. They were classified according to age and sex and blood pressure value at the time of the evaluation, taken according to recommendations. Results: 855 hypertensive subjects were recruited (female 28%, 71,9±7,8 years); with an average SBP of 138.9±17,4 mmHg, an average DBP of 85.9±12,9 mmHg and an average mean pressure (MAP) of 103.5±13,8 mmHg. Table 1 shows the results obtained for SBP, DBP, and MAP according to age. Conclusions: No matter which guideline is taken as reference, the vast majority of the hypertensive population studied continues without controlling their BP values, finding themselves above the goals of any of the mentioned guides, knowing the great risk that this can cause in this such a special population. More universal studies are needed to achieve a global reference value.