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(Hypertension. 2004;44:e7.)
© 2004 American Heart Association, Inc.

Letters to the Editor

Is It Essential to Change the Term "Essential Hypertension"?

Laboratory for Molecular Medicine and Israeli Rat Genome Center, Department of Nephrology and Hypertension, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University Barzilai Medical Center Campus, Ashkelon, Israel

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

To the Editor:

Barry Materson in the September issue of Hypertension proposes to change the term "essential hypertension" to "primary hypertension."¹ Is it right to correct one wrong with another?

The clinical and scientific communities undoubtedly agree with Dr Materson, who agrees in turn with Dr Kaplan,² that the term "essential" to describe hypertension of unknown cause is not an ideal term and is possibly misleading. "Essential" indeed implies to the lay person that hypertension is essential for survival in that particular patient with high blood pressure. However, a wise lay person would look in the dictionary for the full meaning of the term "essential" and come up with the interpretation of the phrase "essential hypertension" as an "idiopathic" disease. Looking in the same dictionary for the meaning of "idiopathic," one would come up with the interpretation "of the nature of a primary morbid state," And "primary," a term to replace "essential" as suggested by Dr Materson, implies in turn "of the first order, whether in time or sequence." Is "essential hypertension" truly primary, of first order? Or is "primary" just another misleading term with respect to hypertension?

When discussing diseases in which one organ plays a central role, such as, for example, in kidney disease, the use of the term "primary" is appropriate, indicating a disease that affects the kidney only or primarily, as opposed to "secondary" in which the kidney is affected as part of a generalized systemic disorder (such as diabetes) that affects also other organ systems. . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Barry J. Materson

Department of Medicine, University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, FL

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. D. Moulopoulos and N. Zakopoulos Letter to the Editor: "Idiopathic" Instead of "Essential" or "Primary" Hypertension? Hypertension, August 1, 2005; 46(2): e3 - e3. [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. E. Hall Hypertension Online Only: November 2004 Hypertension, November 1, 2004; 44(5): 788 - 788. [Full Text] [PDF]