Tight blood pressure control versus standard blood pressure control on the incidence of myocardial infarction and stroke: A retrospective cohort study

Background The 2017 American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guideline defined hypertension as blood pressure (BP) ≥ 130/80 mmHg compared to the traditional definition of ≥ 140/90 mmHg. This change raised much controversy. We conducted this study to evaluate incidences of myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke comparing tight (TBPC) and standard BP control (SBPC). Methods The data were collected and analyzed in 2018. We retrospectively identified hypertensive patients for 1 year at our institution who were classified by BP rate across 3 years into 2 groups of TBPC (< 130 mmHg) and SBPC (130-139 mmHg). We compared the incidence of new MI and stroke between the 2 groups across a 2-year follow-up. Multivariate analysis was done to identify independent risk factors. Results Of 5640 study patients, the TBPC group showed significantly less incidence of stroke compared to the SBPC group. No differences were found in MI incidence between the 2 groups. Multivariate analysis showed that increased age independently increased the incidence of both MI and stroke, and TBPC independently decreased the incidence of stroke but not of MI. Conclusions Our study showed that TBPC had a significant benefit in less stroke incidence compared to SBPC but did not affect the incidence of MI.


Introduction
As one of the most common chronic health conditions, hypertension affects more than 1.3 billion adults worldwide [1] and about 75 million adults in the United States [2]. Hypertension can affect major body organs such as heart, brain, kidneys, and eyes and can lead to serious complications such as myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, end-stage renal disease, or visual impairment.
For almost three decades hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) ≥ 90 mmHg [3]. Recently, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA) published a new guideline defining hypertension as blood pressure (BP) ≥ 130/80 mmHg, and set the BP treatment goal as < 130/80 mmHg [4]. This new guideline was based on the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT), which in 2015 showed lower rates of fatal and nonfatal major cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality when targeting SBP < 120 mmHg [5].
The new ACC/AHA guideline has raised controversies and the American Academy of Family Physicians recently decided to not endorse it. Because of the controversy over the benefit of tight (TBPC) versus standard BP control (SBPC), we analyzed the incidences of MI and stroke in these 2 patient populations at our large health system.

Study Design and Patient Population
This single-center, retrospective cohort study aimed to assess the occurrence of new MI or stroke in patients with TBPC (SBP < 130 mmHg) versus SBPC (SBP 130-139 mmHg). We addressed only SBP rather than both SBP and DBP based on similar previous studies including the SPRINT trial [5].
The data were collected and analyzed in 2018. We accessed the health system's data stores to identify all outpatient encounters with ICD-10 diagnostic codes for hypertension in 2013. This resulted in 233,622 encounters in 88,456 patients. From this group we then applied inclusion and exclusion criteria to identify our study patients.
We included patients with SBP < 140 mmHg between ages 40 and 79 years. The age range was based on the recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showing that adults between ages 18 and 44 years mostly had hypertension under control and used antihypertensive medications less often [6]. We excluded patients if the annual SBP measure was absent or if SBP fluctuated between TBPC and SBPC during the 3 years for BP characterization (2013)(2014)(2015). We excluded patients with diabetes mellitus because the disease is a significant risk factor and a confounder in MI or stroke outcome. We excluded patients with a history of MI or stroke before 2013 because these are the highest risk factors for recurrent MI or stroke. We also excluded patients with MI or stroke events between 2013 and 2015. The attrition diagram (Figure 1) summarizes the enrollment process.

Outcome Measures
The main outcome measures compared between the TBPC and SBPC groups were any new MI or stroke event that occurred within 2 years (2016-2017). Clinical settings of the cardiovascular outcomes included outpatient, emergency department, and inpatient. For ICD-10 coding, we included MI including "late effect" codes, but we did not include angina pectoris. For stroke we counted both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes and "late effect" codes. We did not include transient ischemic attacks given its potential diagnostic uncertainty. We also excluded traumatic hemorrhages or vascular syndromes (e.g., vertebrobasilar artery syndrome).

Variables
We obtained baseline demographic data such as age, gender, race, and body mass index (BMI). We noted smoking status, serum low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels, glomerular filtration rate, aspirin use, antihypertensive use, and statins use. Age was categorized by decade (40-49, 50-59, 60-69, and 70-79 years old). Race/ethnicity was categorized as African American, Asian, Hispanic, white, and other/unknown. For analysis, we further dichotomized race into 2 groups of African American and non-African American based on the recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showing a relatively low percentage of hypertension visits among African Americans compared to other races [6]. BMI was categorized as underweight (BMI < 18.5 kg/m 2 ), normal (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m 2 ), overweight (BMI 25.0-29.9 kg/m 2 ), obese (BMI 30.0-39.9 kg/m 2 ), and morbidly obese (BMI ≥ 40.0 kg/m 2 ) based on World Health Organization criteria [7]. Smoking status was categorized as "never" or "ever." Serum LDL was categorized as ≥ 190 mg/dl or < 190 mg/dl; the former is one of the absolute indications of statin use based on 2013 ACC/AHA guidelines [8]. Glomerular filtration rate was categorized as ≥ 30 ml/min/1.73 m 2 and < 30 ml/min/1.73 m 2 ; the latter is the cutoff value where primary care physicians are recommended to refer patients to nephrology [9]. Use of aspirin, statins, and antihypertensives was determined from medication orders and defined as yes or no.

Adverse Events
Given the retrospective nature of the study with using a large cohort, we were unable to collect data on the adverse events such as lightheadedness, dizziness, syncope, or falls in the TBPC group.
However, we addressed and counted SBP < 90 mmHg in the TBPC group to find out the incidence of significant hypotension.

Statistical Analysis
Sample characteristics were described using means and standard deviations for continuous variables (SBP) and frequencies (number and percentage) for categorical variables (gender, race, smoking, BMI categories, use of statin, and use of aspirin). To compare the baseline variables between TBPC and SBPC groups, we conducted chi-square tests. For multivariate analysis to determine independent predictors for MI or stroke incidence, we performed binary logistic regression entering only those variables that showed significant difference between TBPC and SBPC groups with the only exception of the variable 'antihypertensive use versus no use' as this variable was considered to be relevant for the outcomes. All statistical analyses were performed using Epi Info 7 provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, GA). A P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Baseline Data
We identified 5640 patients as a final cohort for our study ( Figure 1). Significant differences were noted in age, race, BMI, statin use, and the number of antihypertensives between the 2 groups (Table   1). More patients aged 50 to 69 years were in the TBPC group whereas the SBPC group had significantly more patients between 70 and 79 years (P < 0.001). African Americans were less likely to have TBPC compared to other races (P < 0.001). The TBPC group had more normal weight and overweight patients whereas the SBPC group had significantly more obese and morbidly obese patients (P < 0.001). The TBPC group had higher statin use than the SBPC group (P < 0.05). More patients in the SBPC group used 3 or more antihypertensive medications than those in the TBPC group. No differences were noted in gender, smoking status, serum LDL, glomerular filtration rate, and aspirin use between the 2 groups.

Incidence Outcomes
The TBPC and SBPC groups showed no difference in incidence of new MI in the 2-year follow-up ( Table   2). The SBPC group had a significantly higher incidence of stroke compared to the TBPC group (2.7% vs. 1.5%, P < 0.010) ( Table 2). This gave an absolute risk reduction of 1.2%, and the number needed to treat of approximately 83.

Multivariate Analysis
In the logistic regression model, only increased age was an independent predictor of MI incidence (OR 1.518, 95% CI 1.038-2.219) when 'antihypertensive use versus no use' was included as one of the variables (Table 3). However, when 'the number of antihypertensives' was included in the model, increased number of antihypertensives was an independent predictor of MI (OR 2.272, 95% CI 1.441-3.581) ( Table 4). In terms of stroke incidence, both increased age (OR 1.876, 95% CI 1.474-2.387) and TBPC (OR 0.583, 95% CI 0.374-0.910) were significantly associated with stroke incidence when 'antihypertensive use versus no use' was included as one of the variables (

Adverse Events
Among the 4530 patients in the TBPC group, only 5 patients (0.001%) had SBP < 90 mmHg.

Discussion
This single-center cohort study of more than 5000 hypertensive patients evaluated the impact of TBPC (SBP < 130 mmHg) on the incidence of new MI and stroke. We found that TBPC independently decreased the incidence of stroke compared to SBPC, but did not have an impact on MI incidence.
A retrospective study using the ACTION trial database found the greatest difference between SBP < Why TBPC decreases the risk of stroke but not MI remains unclear. Several long-term prospective cohort studies have shown that hypertension increased the relative risk of stroke to a greater degree than MI [15][16][17]. One possible hypothesis is different blood flow physiology between the brain and heart. The brain receives a larger fraction of cardiac output by nearly 3-fold than the heart [18]. While most of the coronary blood flow occurs during diastole, the cerebral blood flow occurs during systole [19]. Therefore, cerebral blood flow might be more sensitive to a change in SBP than coronary blood flow, and coronary blood flow might be more sensitive to a change in DBP than SBP. A recent multinational study supports this hypothesis in that results showed increased risk of MI with increased DBP whereas increased SBP did not increase the risk of MI [20]. Our study and the majority of cohort and prospective studies have shown that TBPC is associated with decreased risk of stroke. Nevertheless, the issue of TBPC must be addressed carefully in the clinical setting. Even though cerebral blood flow has an autoregulation mechanism, the mechanism can be lost if the mean arterial BP drops below 60 mmHg [25]. A study that targeted BP < 130/80 mmHg for diabetic patients found intensive BP control caused progressive reduction of cerebral blood flow velocity [26]. Ferreira et al recently demonstrated significantly increased rates of cardiovascular death, heart failure hospitalization, MI, and stroke when SBP decreased below 125 mmHg [20]. In our study, only 0.001% (5/4530) in the TBPC group showed SBP < 90 mmHg.
An interesting finding in our study is that statin use did not independently affect MI or stroke incidence. Based on the 2013 ACC/AHA guidelines, absolute indications for statin use include clinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and serum LDL ≥ 190 mg/dl [8].
Perhaps statin use did not affect the MI or stroke incidence in our study because we excluded patients with diabetes and those with a history of MI or stroke. Very few patients in our study had a serum LDL ≥ 190 mg/dl (Table 1). Another issue is we only counted the number of medication orders rather than addressing the actual number of medications taken. So it is unclear whether the medications were actually dispensed and taken. Another interesting finding is that increased number of antihypertensive medications significantly predicted both MI and stroke incidence while the usage of antihypertensive medication itself did not predict either MI or stroke incidence in the multivariate model. This can suggest that requiring more antihypertensive medications rather than taking the medications itself could predict higher cardiovascular risk.

Limitations
Our study has several limitations. Because of the retrospective design, we were not able to completely address and remove all potential confounders. There were significant differences in age, race, BMI, statin use, and the number of antihypertensives between TBPC and SBPC groups. The TBPC group was younger and had statins prescribed more often than the SBPC group. Although these variables were adjusted at multivariate analysis, these differences might still have affected our findings. As we excluded other significant risk factors of MI and stroke, such as diabetes and history of MI or stroke, our study population was different from actual patients commonly seen in clinical practice, which might have resulted in the relatively rare outcome events in our study. Also, we were not able to collect information on the adverse events of TBPC.

Conclusion
Our retrospective cohort study showed that TBPC had a significant benefit in less stroke incidence compared to SBPC, although it did not affect the incidence of MI. Our study could help aid in the discussion regarding the association of BP control and stroke in actual clinical practice. Even though the American Academy of Family Physicians decided to not endorse the ACC/AHA guideline, our study shows more favorable result towards the SPRINT trial in terms of less stroke incidence.  Boldface indicates statistical significance (p <0.05).   Boldface indicates statistical significance (p <0.05). Figure 1 Attrition diagram of the study population.