Effect of treatment of hypertension in the primary preventive trial, Göteborg, Sweden.

1 A treatment group comprising 635 hypertensive men (casual SBP greater than 175 or DBP greater than 115 twice) was compared with a reference group (n = 391 men; casual SBP greater than 175 or DBP greater than 115 only at screening). All men belonged to the same population sample of 7,455 men aged 47-54 yr. 2 The two groups did not differ with respect to age, smoking habits or cholesterol values, but screening BPs were higher in the treatment group. 3 During 4.3 years' follow-up there was a significantly lower total death rate in the treatment group compared with reference group. 4 There was also a strong tendency towards lower incidence of non-fatal myocardial infarction (P = 0.06). The pooled incidence of non-fatal myocardial infarction and fatal CHD was lower in the treatment group than in the reference group (P less than 0.03).