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Yehuda M. Traub, MD
Veterans Administration Hospital Pittsburgh

JAMA. 1980;244(12):1317.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Regarding the report on the five-year findings of the Hypertension Detection and Followup Program [HDFP] Cooperative Group (242:2562, 1979), I would like to take issue with some of the conclusions that were forwarded.

First, all of the end points were determined by HDFP staff for the stepped care (SC) patients as well as for the referred care (RC) patients.¹ The fact that the RC patients were not as familiar with the HDFP personnel as opposed to the SC patients could easily account for a slight difference in the mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and thus for the higher percentage of "at or below goal" patients in the SC group.

Second, differences between the two groups in death rates from either cardiovascular or noncardiovascular causes as well as from all causes were similar. Therefore, neither antihypertensive therapy nor lower blood pressure (BP) can be credited for the better . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by John D. Archer, MD, Senior Editor.

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