How can clinical studies and large-scale intervention trials help optimise individually targeted therapy

Large-scale clinical trials of hypertensive therapy recruit patients with elevated blood pressure and aim, long term, to reduce the incidence of associated cardiovascular events (usually myocardial infarctions, symptomatic coronary disease, strokes and death). Although this approach is currently mandatory for demonstrating the efficacy of blood pressure-reducing drugs on outcomes, it has a number of drawbacks. This manuscript explores them.