ABSTRACT
Therapy of hypertension was undoubtedly one of the major achievements of medicine during the second half of the twentieth century. Despite the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of blood pressure-lowering treatment, trial-based evidence about the systolic blood pressure threshold at which treatment should be initiated is weak. Only individuals with symptomatic cardiovascular disease should consider blood pressure-lowering treatment when their blood pressure is in the high-normal and normal range. There are a number of pharmacologically different classes of blood pressure-lowering drugs that have been widely used in treating arterial hypertension. The European guidelines indicate conditions in which some antihypertensive drug classes appear to be preferable, as well as a limited number of conditions to be considered as contraindications or limited indications for any specific class of drugs.
