This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Data Supplement All Versions of this Article: 42/5/885    most recent 01.HYP.0000097602.67134.4Dv1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Sesso, H. D. Articles by Glynn, R. J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Sesso, H. D. Articles by Glynn, R. J. Related Collections Primary prevention Secondary prevention Risk Factors Acute coronary syndromes Acute Stroke Syndromes Epidemiology

(Hypertension. 2003;42:885.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Scientific Contributions

Blood Pressure Lowering and Life Expectancy Based on a Markov Model of Cardiovascular Events

Howard D. Sesso; Roland S. Chen; Gilbert J. L’Italien; Pablo Lapuerta; Won Chan Lee; Robert J. Glynn

From the Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (H.D.S., R.J.G.), Boston, Mass; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (R.S.C., G.J.L., P.L.), Princeton, NJ, and Wallingford, Conn; and MEDTAP International, Inc (W.C.L.), Bethesda, Md.

Correspondence to Howard D. Sesso, ScD, MPH, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 900 Commonwealth Ave East, Boston, MA 02215-1204. E-mail hsesso{at}hsph.harvard.edu

The life expectancy benefits of antihypertensive treatment, based on both systolic and diastolic blood pressure reduction, was estimated with a cardiovascular disease event Markov model with prospective data from 57 573 men and women. Seven patient states were defined, including (1) no cardiovascular disease, (2) stroke, (3) myocardial infarction, (4) revascularization, (5) history of cardiovascular disease, (6) noncardiovascular disease death, and (7) cardiovascular death. Risk functions were developed from gender-specific multivariate Cox proportional hazards models for primary events and age-, smoking-, and diabetes-adjusted models for secondary events. At baseline we assumed (1) hypothetical pretreatment blood pressures of 160/95 or 150/90 mm Hg; (2) strategies A and B lower blood pressure by 20/13 and 13/8 mm Hg, respectively; and (3) baseline age of 35 years. For subjects initially at 160/95 mm Hg, those with antihypertensive treatment, antihypertensive treatment and diabetes, or antihypertensive treatment, diabetes, and currently smoking had corresponding gains in life expectancy of 2.43, 2.80, and 2.43 years for Strategy A. An initial blood pressure of 150/90 mm Hg resulted in similar gains. Compared with Strategy B, with blood pressure reductions of 13/8 mm Hg, Strategy A provided additional gains in life expectancy of 0.84, 0.99, and 0.87 years for those with antihypertensive treatment, antihypertensive treatment and diabetes, or antihypertensive treatment, diabetes, and currently smoking. The initial blood pressure level did not affect the magnitude of life expectancy gains for equivalent blood pressure reductions. Greater gains in life expectancy among hypertensive and diabetic women suggest that blood pressure lowering may yield greater benefits in selected subgroups.

Key Words: blood pressure • cardiovascular diseases • epidemiology • prospective studies • women

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. C. Chan, P. K. Pollett, and M. C. Weinstein Quantitative Risk Stratification in Markov Chains with Limiting Conditional Distributions Med Decis Making, July 1, 2009; 29(4): 532 - 540. [Abstract] [PDF]