A secondary analysis of the SPRINT MIND trial, published online in JAMA Neurology, reported that intensive vs standard antihypertensive treatment was associated with increased cerebral perfusion, especially among participants with a history of cardiovascular disease.

The study was conducted with a view of evaluating the association of intensive systolic blood pressure (SBP) control vs standard control with whole-brain cerebral blood flow (CBF). This substudy included adults 50 years of age or older with hypertension and increased cardiovascular risk, without diabetes or dementia, and compared the efficacy of two different blood pressure-lowering approaches with longitudinal brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including arterial spin-labelled perfusion imaging to determine CBF.

It was observed that among 547 participants with CBF assessed at baseline, the mean whole-brain CBF increased from 38.90 to 40.36 mL/100 g/min in the intensive treatment group. There was no increase in the standard treatment group (37.96 to 37.12 mL/100 g/min). The gray, white, and periventricular white matter CBF exhibited similar changes. All subgroups showed a similar association of intensive vs standard treatment with CBF, except for a greater increase in mean CBF associated with intensive treatment among participants with a history of cardiovascular disease.

(Medscape, March 15; JAMA Neurology, March 7, 2022)