Treatment of Mild Hypertension in the Elderly. A Study Initiated and Administered by the National Heart Foundation of Australia

There were 582 subjects over 60 years of age at entry into the Australian Therapeutic Trial in Mild Hypertension (diastolic blood pressure (V) = 95 to 109 mmHg) in which subjects were randomly allocated to receive active pharmacological treatment or placebo tablets. One-third of the elderly group was aged 69-74 years at the end of the study. All subjects were free of evidence of circulatory or other serious diseases at entry. There was a 39% reduction in trial end-points (death or specified cardiovascular event) amongst the 293 actively treated subjects. There was no evidence of excessive premature withdrawal in this actively treated group which might have been attributed to drug side effects, and the withdrawal rate in these elderly subjects was no different from that of the total trial population. The benefit from treatment in these subjects accords with that found in the total trial population, aged 30 to 69 years.