Target levels of blood pressure in the elderly and very old patients with chronic kidney disease without frailty

Abstract

Currently, people has been paying special attention to the problem of arterial hypertension (AH) in patients of the elderly and very old patients. The expected benefits from the treatment of AH compared to the potential harm in this age group of patients are increasingly being questioned, since they often have disturbed the mechanisms that maintain homeostasis and vital organ perfusion, especially pronounced in “frailty“ elderly and very old patients. Existing randomized clinical trials have shown that antihypertensive therapy in patients of elderly and very old significantly reduces cardiovascular morbidity, as well as cardiovascular mortality and all-cause mortality, however, the target blood pressure (BP) values are still debatable. A number of comorbidities also affect the determination of target levels of BP reduction. For example, AH is a major risk factor for its development and progression for chronic kidney disease (CKD). Therefore, it is important to understand the strategy of treating patients of elderly and very old with concomitant CKD. This article presents a review of the literature on target BP values in elderly and very old patients without frailty with diabetic and non-diabetic CKD. We reviewed data from large studies and meta-analyzes, assessing the relationship of more intensive compared with less intensive control of BP with a reduced risk of major cardiovascular events, mortality or changes in glomerular filtration rate. During the analysis of the literature, it was shown that the studies are extremely controversial: along with the benefits obtained in some of them from lowering BP of less than 130 mm Hg in terms of reducing mortality, cardiovascular risk and rates of progression of CKD, other studies have obtained results indicating not only the absence of these advantages, but also a clear advantage of higher target BP figures. Thus, there is a need for large, specially designed randomized clinical trials devoted to this issue.