New national guidelines on hypertension: a summary for dentistry

Periodically, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute publishes recommendations on the prevention, detection, evaluation and treatment of high blood pressure. The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure--known as "JNC 7"--substantially revises previous recommendations.

This report represents the consensus opinion of a coalition of 39 major professional, public and voluntary organizations and seven federal agencies. All currently available literature on hypertension was reviewed by a select committee of experts on hypertension (including one of the authors [L.M.P.]) and was used to formulate this new report.

The authors present highlights of the JNC 7 report. In addition, they offer the findings of their review of dental literature dealing with patients who have hypertension, into which they integrate information from the JNC 7, and update dental management recommendations. These new guidelines provide key messages to all health care professionals and are designed to improve the diagnosis and treatment of people with hypertension.

Because hypertension affects nearly 50 million people in the United States and underlies most cardiovascular disease, its diagnosis and control should be of concern to all health care providers. Many people have undetected hypertension, and current levels of detection and control need to be improved.

All health care providers, including dentists and members of the dental team, need to be involved in detection and management of this important public health problem. The dentist can play an important role in the detection and management of hypertension.