CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND OUTCOME OF KOREAN HYPERTENSION COHORT

Abstract

Objective: Hypertension is a chronic disease that requires long-term follow-up in many patients. The differences in ethnicity and healthcare resources affect the results of hypertension control. This study evaluated the long-term cardiovascular complications in Asian patients with hypertension compared with controls without hypertension. Design and method: This Korean Hypertension Cohort (KHC) enrolled 11,043 hypertensive patients and followed up for more than 10 years. Age and sex-matched controls without hypertension were enrolled at a 1:10 ratio. Results: The mean age was 59 years, 50.5% were male, and 34.8% and 16.5% of the patients belonged to the high and moderate cardiovascular risk groups, respectively. Event rates in the hypertensive patients were more than twice those in the population without hypertension. Among 16 combinations of the four SBP and four DBP decile groups, all combinations with DBP < 70 mmHg and most combinations with SBP > 150 mmHg showed a significantly higher risk than the reference group of SBP/DBP of 130–139/80-89 mmHg. Even with normal to mildly elevated SBP (130–149 mmHg), combinations with low DBP (< 70 mmHg) showed significantly higher risk than the reference group. Conclusions: This study confirmed the importance of SBP control in patients with hypertension but also raised the importance of DBP in predicting future cardiovascular events.