The research, published in The Lancet, could transform how the condition is managed, allowing doctors to choose a treatment for each patient based on the degree to which they need to lower their blood pressure.

“This is really important because every 1 mmHg reduction in systolic blood pressure lowers your risk of heart attack or stroke by 2%,” said Nelson Wang, cardiologist and Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health.

“But with dozens of drugs, multiple doses per drug, and most patients needing two or more drugs, there are literally thousands of possible options, and no easy way to work out how effective they are,” he said.

The new tool helps overcome this challenge by calculating the average treatment effect seen across hundreds of trials. It also categorizes treatments as low, moderate, and high intensity, based on how much they lower blood pressure (BP)—an approach already routinely used in cholesterol-lowering treatment.