Context There are no evidence syntheses available to guide clinicians on when to titrate antihypertensive medication after initiation.

Objective To model the blood pressure (BP) response after initiating antihypertensive medication. Data sources electronic databases including Medline, Embase, Cochrane Register and reference lists up to December 2009.

Study selection Trials that initiated antihypertensive medication as single therapy in hypertensive patients who were either drug naive or had a placebo washout from previous drugs.

Data extraction Office BP measurements at a minimum of two weekly intervals for a minimum of 4 weeks. An asymptotic approach model of BP response was assumed and non-linear mixed effects modelling used to calculate model parameters.

Results and conclusions Eighteen trials that recruited 4168 patients met inclusion criteria. The time to reach 50% of the maximum estimated BP lowering effect was 1 week (systolic 0.91 weeks, 95% CI 0.74 to 1.10; diastolic 0.95, 0.75 to 1.15). Models incorporating drug class as a source of variability did not improve fit of the data. Incorporating the presence of a titration schedule improved model fit for both systolic and diastolic pressure. Titration increased both the predicted maximum effect and the time taken to reach 50% of the maximum (systolic 1.2 vs 0.7 weeks; diastolic 1.4 vs 0.7 weeks).

Conclusions Estimates of the maximum efficacy of antihypertensive agents can be made early after starting therapy. This knowledge will guide clinicians in deciding when a newly started antihypertensive agent is likely to be effective or not at controlling BP.