2013 Practice guidelines for the management of arterial hypertension of the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC)

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Principles The 2013 European Society of Hypertension/European Society of Cardiology (ESH/ESC) guidelines continue to adhere to some fundamental principles that inspired the 2003 and 2007 guidelines, namely to base recommendations on properly conducted studies identified from an extensive review of the literature; to consider, as the highest priority, data from randomized, controlled trials and their meta-analyses, but not to disregard the results of observational and other studies of appropriate scientific calibre; and to grade the level of scientific evidence and the strength of recommendations in order to more effectively alert physicians on recommendations that are based on the opinions…