Treatment of mild hypertension. An attempted controlled therapeutic trial

A controlled trial of treatment of mild hypertension is described. Two hundred and thirty-three patients (149 females and 84 males) were included in the trial—all maintained diastolic blood pressure (BP) level between 90 and 110mmHg before entering the trial. All had symptomless, uncomplicated essential hypertension—the subjects were allocated to a treated or untreated control group, and the trial continued for 11 yr. Although the incidence of all complications of hypertension was less in the treated group for each sex, these differences were not significant, and the overall incidence of complications well below the number of patients in the control group who required treatment before completion of the trial, and scarcely greater than the number of patients who defaulted from the trial. The difficulties of successfully completing trials of this type are discussed and the need for larger, national trials of similar design, confirmed.