A comparison of medical management and therapeutic response in black versus white hypertensive patients

Hypertension is a serious health threat to the American population. Approximately 26 million individuals are affected by the disease. The consequences of hypertension are potentially devastating, and include cerebrovascular accidents, congestive heart failure, myocardial infarction and a host of other cardiovascular and renal complications. Medical management of the condition has been shown to greatly reduce the incidence of these morbid events. Hypertension and hypertensive disease morbidity are much more common in Blacks than Whites. Additionally, the hypertensive death rates for the black population have not declined in response to recent pharmacological advances to the same extent as those for Whites. This study was conducted to compare the medical management and therapeutic response of Black versus White hypertensive patients attending a hypertension clinic at a short term, large, general hospital. Pretreatment mean arterial pressure, therapeutic regimen, pretreatment disease level (risk factors), post-treatment mean arterial pressure and change in mean arterial pressure (as an indicant of therapeutic response) were examined. The variables were correlated within race and analyzed for differences between races. [...]