Hypertension: points to remember 1 Effective treatment of hypertension reduces the subsequent risk of stroke, cardiac failure and ischaemic heart disease. 2 The majority of hypertensive patients have essential hypertension but young hypertensive patients and those whose hypertension is difficult to control require investigations to look for an underlying cause. 3 When mild or borderline hypertension is diagnosed, conservative measures should be instituted before drug treatment. 4 The choice of anti-hypertensive agent is quite complicated and depends on many factors including contraindications to certain classes of drugs and awareness of the best drug combinations. 5 Hypertension should not be assessed or treated in isolation but represents part of a patient’s total cardiovascular risk assessment. 6 The choice of the first drug used is less important now that there is awareness that the majority of patients will require combination drug treatment