Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) and Target Systolic Blood Pressure in Future Hypertension Guidelines

The Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP, mm Hg) Intervention Trial (SPRINT) showed that targeting SBP <120 mm Hg (intensive treatment, mean SBP: 121.5 mm Hg) versus <140 (standard treatment, mean SBP: 134.6 mm Hg) reduced cardiovascular events 25%. SPRINT has 2 implicit assumptions that could impact future US hypertension guidelines: (1) standard therapy controlled SBP similarly to that in adults with treated hypertension and (2) intensive therapy produced a lower mean SBP than in adults with treated hypertension and SBP <140 mm Hg. To examine these assumptions, US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2009 to 2012 data were analyzed on 3 groups of adults with treated hypertension: group 1 consisted of SPRINT-like participants aged >= 50 years; group 2 consisted of participants all aged >= 18 years; and group 3 consisted of participants aged >= 18 years excluding group 1 but otherwise similar to SPRINT-like participants except high cardiovascular risk. Mean SBPs in groups 1, 2, and 3 were 133.0, 130.1, and 124.6, with 66.2%, 72.2%, and 81.9%, respectively, controlled to SBP <140; 68.3%, 74.8%, and 83.4% of the controlled subset had SBP <130. Mean SBPs in those controlled to <140 were 123.3, 120.9, and 118.9, respectively. Among US adults with treated hypertension, (1) the SPRINT-like group had higher mean SBP than comparison groups, yet lower than SPRINT standard treatment group and (2) among groups 1 to 3 with SBP <140, SBP values were within <3 mm Hg of SPRINT intensive treatment. SPRINT results suggest that treatment should be continued and not reduced when treated SBP is <130, especially for the SPRINT-like subset. Furthermore, increasing the percentage of treated adults with SBP <140 could approximate SPRINT intensive treatment SBP without lowering treatment goals.