Prognosis of Men with Coronary Heart Disease as Related to Blood Pressure

Abstract

Hypertension prior to the onset of the initial myocardial infarction in men is associated with an excess early mortality rate: among men with elevated blood pressure the proportion dead within 1 month is more than twice that found among normotensive men with a first infarction. Hypertensives who survive the acute attack show twice the risk of recurrence and more than five times the risk of cardiac death over the next several years in comparison with men with normal blood pressure prior to infarction. Among men whose first clinical evidence of coronary disease is angina pectoris, those with an elevated blood pressure have two and one half times the likelihood of experiencing a first myocardial infarction and cardiac death within a follow-up period of 30 months. These findings are from the HIP (Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York) study of the incidence and prognosis of coronary heart disease, an ongoing prospective study of a general population of 110,000 men and women aged 25 to 64 years.