Letter by Triantafyllou et al Regarding Article, “Mild Retinopathy Is a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Mortality in Japanese With and Without Hypertension: The Ibaraki Prefectural Health Study”

Abstract

To the Editor: We have read with great interest the work from Sairenchi et al in a large cohort of 87 890 individuals with a mean 14.1 years of follow-up,1 which was long awaited for the establishment of the prognostic value of mild hypertensive retinopathy in terms of actual hard clinical outcomes, including all-cause, total cardiovascular, and total stroke mortality. Given the study's findings, we acknowledge the importance attributed to mild hypertensive retinopathy as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular mortality in individuals with and without hypertension. Yet we believe that this conclusion (reproduced in the article's title) might be somewhat …