Hypertension
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Hypertension is generally defined as an elevated systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≥ 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) ≥ 90 mmHg. Hypertension can be chronic or acute. Chronic hypertension is in 95% of the cases primary and in 5 % secondary to other underlying causes. Hypertensive crisis is the acute elevation of blood pressure and it can be classified into hypertensive emergency or hypertensive urgency when end organ damage is present or absent respectively.
Classification
| Hypertension | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chronic hypertension | Hypertensive crisis Acute elevation of blood pressure - Systolic blood pressure >180 mm Hg, or - Diastolic blood pressure >120 mm Hg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary hypertension (also known as essential hypertension) (95% of the cases) | Secondary hypertension (5% of the cases) | Hypertensive emergency Evidence of end organ damage | Hypertensive urgency No evidence of end organ damage | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||