The new, long-awaited European guidelines for treating arterial hypertension have been presented to clinicians.
The clinical guidelines, which have been jointly developed by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the European Society of Hypertension (ESH), were unveiled at the European Society of Hypertension meeting in Barcelona last week.
They provide recommendations for doctors across Europe about how to diagnose the condition, evaluate risk – and when and how to treat and reduce risk.
Lead author Professor Bryan Williams, chair of ESC and also of University College London, UK, said the guidelines are important because hypertension affects more than 25% of the adult population across Europe.
“The focus of the guideline is to improve the treatment of high blood pressure and blood pressure control in treated patients, which at present is not as good as it should be,” he said.
Professor Giuseppe Mancia, of University Milano-Bicocca Milan, and also lead author, added: “The 2018 ESC/ESH guidelines issue new recommendations on how to optimally treat hypertension. Drug therapy extends to additional groups of patients.
“Also, blood pressure values to aim at with treatment are lower than in the past. In addition, combination therapy is now recognised as the most effective initial treatment strategy in most patients.”
The full text of the new joint guidelines for the Management of Arterial Hypertension will be published on 25 August 2018, during the ESC Congress 2018 in Munich.
Leave a Reply