Hypertensive Mediated Organ Damage and Hypertension Management. How to Assess Beneficial Effects of Antihypertensive Treatments?

The presence of hypertensive mediated organ damage is related to increased vascular risk and mortality and its prevention should be a therapeutic target and a surrogate marker of in/adequate blood pressure control. In old adult hypertensive patients the therapeutic target should be to prevent major cardiovascular events, but in young hypertensive subjects the focus should be pointed on preventing the development of hypertensive mediated organ damage, since most of the hard events are preceded by functional and structural tissues injury. Hypertension Guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology and European Society of Hypertension recognizes that some variables like electrocardiographic or echocardiographic left ventricle hypertrophy, chronic kidney disease or advance retinopathy, all considered as hypertensive mediated organ damage, may be modifiers of cardiovascular risk estimated by the SCORE system, and for that reason they should be screened in hypertensive patients. It is well known the problem of limited health systems financial resources in many low and even median income countries which precludes the possibilities of generalizing the search for hypertension mediated organ damage in all hypertensive patients. In these scenario the recommendation to perform a detailed screening should be critically evaluated. Some questions remained unanswered: the screening generalization of hypertensive mediated organ damage should modify the cardiovascular risk score of the patients, if its presence could modify the therapeutic approach, and as a consequence, if the treatment adjustment should prolong life expectancy and ameliorate the quality of life.