Why the study?
Does acute antihypertensive therapy improve outcomes in patients with acute stroke?
Does acute antihypertensive therapy improve outcomes in patients with acute stroke?
This review suggests that acute antihypertensive therapy is generally not indicated in acute stroke due to spontaneous blood pressure normalization and potential risks of reducing cerebral perfusion, though labetalol or ACE-inhibitors may be used if treatment is mandatory.
May warrant avoiding routine acute BP lowering in stroke; leaves open definitive RCTs for comorbid subgroups.
Patients with acute stroke often have high blood pressure levels the first days after hospital admission. The causes of high blood pressure in patients with acute stroke are incompletely known. In stroke patients with large cerebral lesions and impaired consciousness, high blood pressure seems to be secondary to high intracranial pressure and in these patients high blood pressure indicates a worse prognosis. In the majority of patients, alert on hospital admission, high blood pressure increases from hospitalization stress and is not related to a worse prognosis. (Hypertens Res 1994; 17 Suppl.
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Bo Carlberg (1994) studied this question.
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