–BP measurement question limits the trial’s ability to inform clinical practice. A long-promised report from the SPRINT investigators offers important new information about how blood pressure was monitored in the trial. The report is unlikely to satisfy critics or resolve the larger controversy of how the trial should be interpreted. At the American Heart Association…
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SPRINT Substudy Detects Mortality Signal
August 29, 2017 by 1 Comment
–Aggressive blood pressure lowering may sometimes be deadly. BARCELONA — A new examination of data from the SPRINT trial raises the fear that adopting the aggressive blood pressure target of 120 mm Hg in some hypertensive patients with baseline BP of 160 mm Hg or more may increase the risk of death. Tzung-Dau Wang, MD,…
Principal Investigator Defends SPRINT Against Critics
April 20, 2017 by 1 Comment
–Blood pressure experts disagree about the NIH ‘Landmark’ Trial. Since the first announcement of its preliminary results the SPRINT trial has been the focus of intense controversy. One major focus of contention revolves around the precise technique used to measure blood pressure in the trial. As in all recent large outcome trials in hypertension, blood…
Can SPRINT Be Used To Inform Hypertension Treatment?
April 9, 2017 by 3 Comments
–The landmark trial results are not easy to apply to clinical practice. Since the first breathless announcement of its preliminary results, SPRINT trial has been viewed as a landmark trial serving to establish a more aggressive approach to blood pressure management. It is now becoming increasingly clear, however, that the application of SPRINT in the…
New Questions Raised About SPRINT
February 8, 2017 by Leave a Comment
More questions are being raised about SPRINT, the enormous NIH-funded blood pressure lowering trial. Two recent developments will likely add more obstacles to the already difficult task of applying the results of the trial in the real world. Even before the full results of the trial were first made public the NIH and the SPRINT…
SPRINTing to Lower BP Targets? Not So Fast
September 15, 2016 by 2 Comments
–Hypertension experts disagree about how to apply SPRINT results in the real world. Once again blood pressure experts are disagreeing about how to interpret SPRINT and how its results should be applied in the real world. A new study claims that applying the SPRINT results to US patients who meet SPRINT criteria would prevent more…
SPRINT: More Controversy And Confusion About ‘Landmark’ Trial
September 6, 2016 by 3 Comments
–Blood pressure experts raise new questions and concerns about the controversial trial. More questions and concerns are being raised about SPRINT, the NIH’s “landmark” blood pressure lowering trial. In sharp contrast to the enormous amount of initial hype, many hypertension experts are now saying that the SPRINT trial is difficult to interpret and can’t be readily…
Cardiologists: Thumbs Down To SPRINT
August 28, 2016 by 2 Comments
[Updated, August 29, August 30] –SPRINT should not be used in guidelines to lower blood pressure targets. Should the SPRINT trial be used by guideline committees to lower systolic blood pressure targets? After listening to a high-powered debate at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Rome on Sunday, most audience members gave thumbs down…
How Should SPRINT Influence High Blood Pressure In Children And Adolescents?
March 28, 2016 by 2 Comments
–Editorialists say pediatric hypertension in children is ready for a ‘paradigm shift’ Last year’s influential— and highly controversial— SPRINT trial should be used to better inform and influence our understanding and management of hypertension in children, write two influential physicians who have played a key role in the cardiovascular guidelines for children and adolescents. They…
Slow Down. Don’t Sprint To More Aggressive BP Treatment
February 22, 2016 by 7 Comments
Two editorialists in Annals of Internal Medicine urge caution in interpreting and adopting the findings of the SPRINT (Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial), which last year showed a benefit for a more aggressive approach to blood pressure therapy. The trial found improved outcomes in high risk patients treated to a target of of 120 mm…
SPRINT Will Change But Not Revolutionize Blood Pressure Treatment
November 9, 2015 by 1 Comment
After all the hype and hoopla it turns out that the SPRINT trial will in all likelihood really have a significant impact on clinical practice and future guidelines, but it also also seems clear that it will not bring about a revolution, as some have recently speculated, in the treatment of high blood pressure. That’s the broad consensus emerging from hypertension…
Lancet Sprints To The Front With A Blood Pressure Meta-Analysis
November 6, 2015 by 1 Comment
A new meta-analysis published in the Lancet on Friday lends fresh support to calls for more intensive blood pressure treatments. The publication comes only days before the highly anticipated presentation of the NIH’s SPRINT trial at the American Heart Association, which is also expected to offer support for stricter blood pressure control. Blood pressure goals were relaxed after the ACCORD…
Coming Attraction: Looking Forward To SPRINT At The AHA Next Month
October 27, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Back in September the NIH tantalized the medical community with a preliminary announcement of the results of a major clinical trial, SPRINT (Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial). The NIH said SPRINT was a “landmark trial” that could “save lives,” but their claims were impossible to evaluate since they only gave the slightest hint of the actual results. On November…
Heart Failure Experts SPRINT To An Early Finish
October 7, 2015 by Leave a Comment
According to a recent news report a group of prominent heart failure doctors have eagerly embraced a lower blood pressure target of 120 mm Hg for heart failure patients based on the preliminary results of the SPRINT trial announced last month. But another equally prominent heart failure doctor says that it is far too early to…
SPRINT Trial To Be Presented At The American Heart Association Meeting In November
September 29, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Update: I have now received confirmation that SPRINT will be presented on Monday, November 9 at 2 PM. The SPRINT trial, which provoked a storm of excitement and controversy a few weeks ago, will be presented in November at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando. The trial is not currently on the list of late-breaking clinical trials but…
A Premature SPRINT To The Finish Line
September 14, 2015 by 1 Comment
On Friday the NHLBI declared victory in the SPRINT trial. As was widely reported here and elsewhere, the NHLBI announced that the trial had been stopped early after significant reductions in cardiovascular events and mortality had occurred in the group of hypertensive patients randomized to a more aggressive blood pressure target than is currently recommended today. But there was a…
Women and Younger Patients May Be At Higher Risk For Sprint Fidelis Failure
January 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Women, younger patients, those with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and those with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia or channelopathies may be more likely to develop Sprint Fidelis lead failure. Robert Hauser and colleagues at the Minneapolis Heart Institute, the Mayo Clinic, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center analyzed data from 1023 patients who received Fidelis leads and 1668…
Study finds Sprint Fidelis lead fractures “increasing exponentially”
December 24, 2009 by Leave a Comment
A large single-center study finds that the rate of Spring Fidelis lead fracture “is increasing exponentially with time and… occurring at a higher rate than the latest manufacturer’s performance update.” The study from the University of Rochester appears in the January 1 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology….
NY Times: difficult decisions about Sprint Fidelis leads
April 7, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Many patients with Sprint Fidelis leads, along with their doctors, face difficult decisions, according to a feature story in today’s New York Times. Reporter Barry Meier writes that “thousands of those patients may face risky surgical procedures to remove and replace” the leads. Meier reports that 4 patients have already died during Sprint Fidelis lead…
Number of deaths linked to Sprint Fidelis leads rises to 13
March 13, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Late on Friday the 13th Medtronic sent a letter to physicians saying that the number of deaths in which its Sprint Fidelis leads may have played a role has climbed to 13. Earlier this week we reported that the judge who had dismissed the lawsuits against the company would not step down from the case…
Sprint Fidelis judge won’t step down from case
March 11, 2009 by 1 Comment
Here comes da judge! Despite charges that he has a conflict of interest, the judge who dismissed the lawsuits against Medtronic in the Sprint Fidelis cases will not step down, according to an AP report by Matthew Perrone and a Star Tribune story by Janet Moore. On Monday the judge ruled that he was not…
Sprint Fidelis leads: is the risk greater than feared?
February 24, 2009 by 1 Comment
The failure rate of Medtronic’s Sprint Fidelis leads may be much higher than previous estimates, according to a new report by Robert Hauser and David Hayes in HeartRhythm. The two investigators (Hauser was the first to spot the problems with the Medtronic leads) looked at the rate of lead failure among patients who received the…
No, A Big NIH Trial Did Not Show That Lowering Blood Pressure Will Prevent Dementia
July 26, 2018 by 4 Comments
It’s “breakthrough” time again. News reports out of the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) this week have been relentlessly upbeat and positive about findings from the NIH’s SPRINT MIND study. The message: aggressive blood pressure control can help protect the brain. But unless you look very carefully at the news reports and “expert” statements you won’t…
The Hypertension Guideline War Is Not A Fake War
February 11, 2018 by 14 Comments
The war over the new blood pressure guideline is not a fake war or a childish dispute. It is a real war over genuine differences in how we should think about health and disease and prevention. The publication last November of the new US blood pressure guideline sparked a vigorous and important debate. A central part…
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