Effect of more versus less intensive blood pressure control on cardiovascular, renal and mortality outcomes in people with type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS:

Currently, there is uncertainty as to whether blood pressure control in patients with type 2 diabetes should be treated to standard recommended levels or more intensively.

METHODS:

Medline, EMBASE, CENTRAL, and Clinicaltrials.gov were searched between January 1, 2000 and April 20th, 2023. Outcomes considered were all-cause mortality, stroke, heart failure, cardiovascular disease, albuminuria, coronary heart disease, and renal outcomes. Random-effects meta-analyses estimated pooled relative risks and mean differences.

RESULTS:

Nine trials enrolling 11,005 participants with type 2 diabetes were included. The pooled mean difference between the intensive and standard treatment groups at follow-up were -7.98 mmHg (95% CI.: 12.19 to -3.76) in systolic blood pressure, and -5.08 mmHg (-7.00 to -3.17) in diastolic blood pressure; although between study heterogeneity was high for both meta-analyses (I2>85%). Intensive blood pressure lowering resulted in a reduction in risk of stroke (risk ratio 0.64; 0.52 to 0.79), and macro-albuminuria (0.77; 0.63 to 0.93). More intensive blood pressure control did not result in a statistically significant reduction in risk of all-cause mortality, heart failure, cardiovascular death, cardiovascular events, renal outcomes, and micro-albuminuria; although the direction of estimated effect was beneficial for all outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS:

The use of intensive compared with standard blood pressure targets resulted in a significant reduction in blood pressure, stroke, and macro-albuminuria in patients with type 2 diabetes. The post-treatment blood pressure level in the intensive group was 125/73 mmHg, suggesting the current recommendations of 130/80 mmHg blood pressure or lower if tolerated, could be reduced further.