Evidence-based Management of Hypertension

by Matthew R Weir MD (Editor)

Overview

The treatment of hypertension is now evolving into a decision-making process of ever greater complexity. Not only has the range of drugs available increased but so too has our knowledge of the diversity of individual patients' responsiveness to therapy, and the need to tailor their treatment with reference to a wide variety of additional factors. In order to provide effective patient care, the clinician needs to be aware of all the options available, but also of the evidence supporting their use and the extent to which that evidence justifies the choices made.

In this new volume, leading authorities in their fields draw on the available evidence to provide answers to a series of key clinical questions facing the clinician treating hypertension: Should we treat prehypertension? How does the choice of therapy change in the presence of comorbidities such as obesity, ischemic heart disease, left ventricular hypertrophy, diabetes or cerebrovascular disease? "Evidence-based Management of Hypertension" provides answers to these and many other questions, as the authors present an expert analysis of the available evidence and offer authoritative recommendations for treatment planning.

In each chapter, tables highlight evidence from a variety of sources, and every chapter concludes with a series of key practice points that present a summary of evidence-based recommendations for best practice, graded according to the quality of that evidence. For any clinician concerned with the care of the hypertensive patient, this volume will be a valuable aid to treatment planning and long-term management.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781903378724
Publisher:	TFM Publishing
Publication date:	09/01/2010
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	6.75(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Matthew R Weir MD, Division of Nephrology, Universityof Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Vincent F Carr, DO, MSA, FACC, FACP (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences)
Description: This is a collection of articles examining hypertension associated with concomitant medical conditions. It starts with the historical perspective of treating hypertension, considers the current understanding of physiology, and summarizes the accepted current thinking on treating hypertension.
Purpose: The book is a summation of what medicine currently believes about when to treat, how to treat, and whether treatment makes a difference. This is a most worthy endeavor as much has been debated after the Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC-7) was published, with some valid arguments on both sides of the discussion. The contributors make their cases extremely well. One caveat: the articles may not all agree with the evidence currently available, and in light of some published formularies, may not support the JNC-7 recommendations that the formularies were based upon. So the argument for treating with a specific medication, absent a coinciding medical condition, may not be answered. Nevertheless, this book does a great job of presenting the evidence as it is currently understood.
Audience: It is appropriate for all who diagnose and treat high blood pressure. Of tremendous value are the summaries at the end of each article that succinctly present the take-home points if one does not wish to plough through the evidence itself. The contributors are some of the best-known experts in their fields.
Features: The outstanding feature of this book is that it presents the evidence as we currently understand it and ends with a summary of each article. So, clinicians have a choice of reading through all the data or just the summary and they will benefit either way. The references are very complete. Because the articles are based upon concomitant medical conditions with hypertension, there is a bit of redundancy, which is actually appropriate as practitioners from each specialty are drawing their specific conclusions from the data. (As an aside, the font and layout makes this book one of the easiest I have read in a very long time.)
Assessment: Because hypertension is so common and the failure to treat it properly has such tremendously high stakes in terms of long-term disability, I highly recommend this book for every medical library.

Doody's Review Service