The Prognosis in Long Term Treated and “Untreated” Essential Hypertension

Abstract

Abstract. Since 1955 we have registered patients suffering from essential hypertension. 433 cases, 225 men and 208 women, were graded according to WHO and Hammarström and Bechgaard's system. Medical treatment was started and followed up by one of us (HSM). The numbers of deaths in the treated sample and in an “untreated” series of 290 hypertensive patients are compared with the death rate in the corresponding general population in Norway. The same persons have made the classification of the treated and “untreated” samples. In the treated series the numbers of deaths were 56 men and 29 women instead of the 15.61 men and 12.73 women expected, which shows a death rate of 359% for men and 228% for women. This is far better than of the “untreated” sample, in which the death rates were found to be 985% for men and 813% for women. It seems as if we have succeeded in reducing the death rate to about half by means of medical treatment. There is an appreciable reduction in the number of cerebral deaths in men in the treated sample as compared to the “untreated”. There is not a similar drop in cardiovascular deaths.