Addressing global gaps in knowledge about blood pressure treatment

Investigating the stratified efficacy and safety of pharmacological blood pressure lowering: individual patient-level data meta-analyses of over 300,000 randomised participants in the new phase of the Blood Pressure Lowering Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration

Advances in research have shown that reducing high blood pressure with medicines can prevent heart disease and stroke. But there remain several gaps in our knowledge, including how blood pressure treatment affects other health issues, and what the best blood pressure would be for different people. Answering these questions requires the analysis of large sets of data collected from randomized clinical trials. Professor Rahimi has set up an international collaboration called The Blood Pressure Lowering Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration (BPLTTC), which brings together information from over 45 trials involving around 300,000 people – the largest data set of its kind. His team will look at this data to try and answer three questions: 1. How does an individual’s age or ‘normal’ blood pressure influence when they should start taking medicine to lower blood pressure, and what should the target blood pressure be? 2. Does lowering blood pressure cause other unwanted health issues, such as falls and fractures, kidney problems, cancer, dementia or diabetes? 3. How does lowering blood pressure affect heart and circulatory conditions, apart from heart attack and stroke? By answering these questions, is it hoped that blood pressure treatment recommendations can be fine-tuned, so that in the future patients can receive more personalised treatment which is more likely to benefit them.