Ideal Blood Pressure in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation

The 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) Guideline for High Blood Pressure in Adults redefined hypertension as systolic blood pressure (BP) ≥130 mm Hg or diastolic BP ≥80 mm Hg. The optimal BP for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) is uncertain.

The goal of this study was to investigate the impacts of the 2017 ACC/AHA guideline and to determine the ideal BP threshold for the management of high BP in patients with AF.

This study analyzed data for 298,374 Korean adults with oral anticoagulant-naive, nonvalvular AF obtained from the National Health Insurance Service database from 2005 to 2015.

According to the Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure guideline, 62.2% of the individuals in our sample had hypertension. After applying the 2017 ACC/AHA guideline, 79.4% had hypertension, including 17.2% with newly redefined hypertension (130 to 139/80 to 89 mm Hg). Those with newly redefined hypertension had greater risks of major cardiovascular events (hazard ratio: 1.07; 95% confidence interval: 1.04 to 1.10; p < 0.001), ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage, and heart failure admission, compared with nonhypertensive patients (<130/80 mm Hg). Among patients with AF undergoing hypertension treatment, patients with BP ≥130/80 mm Hg or <120/80 mm Hg were at significantly higher risks of major cardiovascular events than patients with BP of 120 to 129/<80 mm Hg.

Patients with AF and newly redefined hypertension according to the 2017 ACC/AHA guideline were at higher risk of major cardiovascular events, suggesting that the new BP threshold is beneficial for timely diagnosis and intervention. BP of 120 to 129/<80 mm Hg was the optimal BP treatment target for patients with AF undergoing hypertension treatment.