Hypertensive crisis: Diagnosis and treatment

Hypertensive crisis represents a medical emergency that demands urgent treatment. There are two kinds of hypertensive crisis (hypertensive emergency and hypertensive urgency), which require different protocols depending on the stage of emergency and type of hypertensive crisis. The diagnosis is not based only on the absolute values of blood pressure, but also on the time of onset. Hypertensive emergency must be promptly treated, within of one hour of its onset, because it may cause serious organ damage; while hypertensive urgency needs to be treated within 24 hours. In order to treat hypertensive emergencies promptly, drugs must be administered via continuous intravenous infusion or intermittent IV boluses of potent vasodilators such as sodium nitroprusside or glyceryl trinitrate, although other groups of drugs are also used. Hypertensive urgency is usually treated with peroral drugs.