Should the blood pressure or the blood vessel be the target of therapy?

Abstract

Measured blood pressure is an insensitive and moderately nonspecific guide to the presence of vascular or cardiac diseases likely to progress to cardiovascular morbid events. Since the goal of the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension is to prevent or forestall such morbid events, blood pressure measurements should be supplemented by studies of the health of the cardiovascular system in defining the syndrome of hypertension and in monitoring its response to therapy.

Keywords::

• atherosclerosis
• blood pressure
• endothelial dysfunction
• large arteries
• small arteries

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Jay N Cohn is an inventor of the CVProfilor^®, a device manufactured by Hypertension Diagnostics, Inc. and in worldwide use for assessing arterial elasticity. He also has an equity position in Cardiovascular Centers, an entity dedicated to developing screening centers for detecting early cardiovascular disease. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.