Hello. This is Dr Sam Goldhaber for the Clot Blog on theheart.org at Medscape, speaking to you from the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Florida.
There is great buzz today at the AHA because details from the SPRINT trial of optimal target blood pressure are going to be revealed to us. The press release[1] from several months ago stated that the new target for blood pressure should be in the order of 120/80 mm Hg rather than 140/90 mm Hg or 130/80 mm Hg. I want to bring up that high blood pressure is a known risk factor for deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism.
We are going to find out more details about these new targets later today. It is possible that if these new targets are adopted and accepted by the medical community, and if we become more aggressive in lowering systemic arterial blood pressure, then we might see this translate not only into a reduction in myocardial infarction, stroke, and overall cardiovascular death, but there may also be a benefit with lower incidence of DVT and pulmonary embolism.
Only time will tell. We should keep in mind that the standard cardiovascular risk factors for myocardial infarction are, for the most part, the same standard risk factors for pulmonary embolism. They include hypertension, diabetes, and cigarette smoking, to name some of the top ones. We should think of hypertension and venous thromboembolism in an integrated approach. I think the details of the SPRINT trial are going to give us a lot of food for thought.
This is Dr Sam Goldhaber signing off for the Clot Blog.
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Any views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of WebMD or Medscape.
Cite this: Samuel Z. Goldhaber. Hypertension Affects VTE Too - Medscape - Nov 19, 2015.
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