Abstract

GARCIA BARRETO, David et al. Arterial hypertension: a risk factor or one more sign of the atherothrombotic syndrome?. Rev cubana med [online]. 2006, vol.45, n.2, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-302X.

This review was made aimed at justifying a new concept of arterial hypertension. Due to its easy use and transportation and to its accuracy, the sphygmomanometer began to be utilized in the routine clinical examination, which led to consider arterial hypertension as a series of stepped figures. Even when these figures are reduced to normal levels by treatment, the total risk for cardiovascular mortality and morbidity is still of approximately 75 %. The mortality from hypertensive heart disease started to decrease significantly when there were just a few hypertensive drugs. This makes us think that the other components of the syndrome began to be separately diagnosed, leaving alone hypertension, which is not the cause of a risk higher than 25 %. The high figures of arterial pressure cannot be considered as a classical risk factor either, since they neither precede nor cause the main manifestation of the syndrome: atherosclerosis, which manifests itself since fetal stages or in early childhood when there is no arterial hypertension and if there would be, it would have had no time to act. According to the evidence exposed, we concluded that arterial hypertension, specially systolic pressure, is an indicator of the subrogated risk of the atherothrombotic syndrome. This syndrome results from multiple causes or risk factors that produce functional and/or morphological changes of the arteries. The clinically used syndrome indicators are presented and a definition of arterial hypertension as part of the atherothrombotic syndrome is proposed.

Keywords : Hypertension; risk, indicators.