This week, Amol, resident in General Internal Medicine at University of Toronto, and Mike Fralick, chief medical resident at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, talk about 2 blood pressure studies:

A meta-analysis and systematic review found that more intensive blood pressure lowering was associated with improved cardiovascular outcomes and albuminuria. Amol discusses the trade-offs of these improvements.

Now for the anticipated discussion of the SPRINT trial! This 9361 patient randomized control trial found that intensive blood pressure control of below 120 mmHg was associated with a decrease of composite end point, including myocardial infarction, stroke, congestive heart failure and death from cardiovascular events. Mike cautions that these results should only be applied to certain patient populations, given that the trial did not include patients with diabetes and other co-morbidities.

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1. Pulmonary embolism: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2443959

1. Intravenous iron: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2470447

2. Electronic health record: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1509961