Nuevas técnicas diagnósticas y terapéuticas en hipertensión arterial. Utilización en la práctica clínica

In the last few years, new contributions have been made for the diagnosis and treatment of arterial hypertension (AHT), whose purpose would be to improve its control. However, there are no data regarding the use of these new contributions in the daily clinical practice. In the present study, we have tried to find out the implementation of these new contributions. The study was performed by an interview to 326 treated hypertensive patients (average age 71±9 years old, 65.5% women) who attend our center for programmed surgical interventions. The AHT control has taken place mainly (82.5%) in primary care, by nursing personnel (63.8%) followed by a 35.2% in the pharmacy and only a 6.7% by self. The control frequency has been mainly in month basis. The results stands out the number of patients (56.8%) that do not know any exploration suffered related to AHT. The analyses and the electrocardiograms have been the most usual explorations, instead, the new exploratory techniques (MAPA, echocardiograms and renal echographies) have been little used. In pharmacological treatments, new drugs are also little used. The most prescribed drugs were hydrochlorothiazide and enalapril.