In Romania, a high cardiovascular (CV) risk East European country, where prevalence of hypertension is still high and optimal blood pressure control still represents a doubtfull challange (1-5), adopting a treatment approach strategy based on total cardiovascular risk assessment can maximize the costeffectiveness of hypertensive patinets management, ensuring the best use of the limited resources of our health-care system, to prevent cardiovascular diseses and to decrease CV morbidity and mortality.
Recent research show that increased arterial stiffness represents an independent predictor of fatal and non-fatal CV events in hypertensive patients (6-10).