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Updated: Sep 20, 2026

Improved Home Blood Pressure Control by CT-guided Ozone-mediated Renal Denervation for Patients with Resistant Hypertension
Published on: June 6, 2025
What can be expected from optimal blood pressure control?
Jan A Staessen1, Ji-Guang Wang, Lutgarde Thijs
1Study Coordinating Centre, Hypertension and Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Unit, Department of Molecular and Cardiovascular Research, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. jan.staessen@med.kuleuven.ac.be
Insights
Achieving tight blood pressure control is crucial for reducing cardiovascular risks. This meta-analysis shows blood pressure levels, not drug classes, primarily determine outcomes in hypertensive patients.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Pharmacology
- Clinical Trials
Background:
- Hypertension management involves various drug classes with debated impacts on cardiovascular outcomes.
- Recent trials compare newer (ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers) versus older (diuretics, beta-blockers) antihypertensive agents.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze how different antihypertensive drug classes and blood pressure control levels affect cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in high-risk patients.
- To evaluate the efficacy of nitrendipine-based therapy in specific patient populations.
Main Methods:
- Meta-regression analysis of 30 clinical trials encompassing 149,407 patients.
- Analysis based on reported summary statistics from published literature.
- Specific study on older patients with isolated systolic hypertension and diabetic patients.
Main Results:
- Blood pressure gradients explained most outcome variations in hypertensive or high-risk individuals.
- Nitrendipine-based treatment reduced stroke and cardiovascular complications in older adults with isolated systolic hypertension.
- Nitrendipine therapy decreased dementia incidence, proteinuria, total mortality, and improved cardiovascular prognosis in diabetic patients.
Conclusions:
- Tight blood pressure control is highly desirable for managing hypertension and its complications.
- Blood pressure reduction, rather than specific drug classes, is the primary driver of improved cardiovascular outcomes.
- Nitrendipine demonstrates significant benefits across various high-risk patient groups.
Abstract:
Several classes of drugs are used to treat hypertension but how they affect cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in high-risk patients is still under investigation. Recent outcome trials have examined the benefits associated with different levels of blood pressure control or have compared several of the 'newer' classes of antihypertensive drugs, such as angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and calcium channel blockers, with 'older' drug classes, such as diuretics and beta-blockers. Other trials have compared antihypertensive drugs with placebo. We performed a meta-regression analysis of 30 clinical trials that included a total of 149,407 patients. We based our analysis on summary statistics reported in the literature, and showed that blood pressure gradients accounted for most, if not all, of the differences in outcome in patients with hypertension or at high cardiovascular risk. We also conducted a study in older patients with isolated systolic hypertension and showed that antihypertensive drug treatment starting with the dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker, nitrendipine, reduced the risk of stroke and all cardiovascular complications. In addition, nitrendipine-based blood pressure-lowering therapy decreased the incidence of dementia. In diabetic patients, nitrendipine reduced the risk of proteinuria, decreased total mortality, and markedly improved cardiovascular prognosis. Taken together, these findings emphasize the desirability of tight blood pressure control.
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