Tight blood pressure control versus standard blood pressure control on the incidence of myocardial infarction and stroke: A retrospective cohort study

Background The 2017 American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guideline defined hypertension as blood pressure (BP) ≥ 130/80 mmHg compared to the traditional definition of ≥ 140/90 mmHg. This change raised much controversy. We conducted this study to evaluate incidences of myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke comparing tight (TBPC) and standard BP control (SBPC).Methods The data were collected and analyzed in 2018. We retrospectively identified hypertensive patients for 1 year at our institution who were classified by BP rate across 3 years into 2 groups of TBPC (< 130 mmHg) and SBPC (130-139 mmHg). We compared the incidence of new MI and stroke between the 2 groups across a 2-year follow-up. Multivariate analysis was done to identify independent risk factors.Results Of 5640 study patients, the TBPC group showed significantly less incidence of stroke compared to the SBPC group. No differences were found in MI incidence between the 2 groups. Multivariate analysis showed that increased age independently increased the incidence of both MI and stroke, and TBPC independently decreased the incidence of stroke but not of MI.Conclusions Our study showed that TBPC had a significant benefit in less stroke incidence compared to SBPC but did not affect the incidence of MI.