New Study Reports on Importance of Repeating Blood Pressure

A study published on-line in the April 16, 2018 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine reports the effect of repeating an initially elevated blood pressure (BP) on final blood pressure control.  Funded by grants from the Centers for Disease Control and the Mount Sinai Foundation,  faculty member Douglas Einstadter was lead author on the investigation alongside other faculty and Senior Scholars of the Case Western Reserve University-MetroHealth System Center for Health Care Research and Policy, including Shari Bolen, James Misak, David Bar-Shain, and Randall Cebul. The study examined more than 38,000 patients with hypertension who made over 86,000 visits to the primary care clinics at MetroHealth during 2016. Across all visits, re-measuring an initially elevated BP was associated with a median 8 mm Hg drop in the systolic BP.  Among those with a repeat BP, the final BP readings were <140/90 mm Hg 36% of the time.  Overall, repeating an initially elevated BP increased the overall rate of good BP control from 61% to 73%.  While much of the change in systolic blood pressure may be attributed to regression to the mean, the observed decrease remains clinically important, comparable with that associated with addition of an antihypertensive medication. The full article is available here https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2678452 .