Systemic hemodynamic atherothrombotic syndrome (SHATS) – Coupling vascular disease and blood pressure variability: Proposed concept from pulse of Asia

Hypertension (HTN) is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) but the association between HTN and CVD cannot be explained by average blood pressure (BP) alone. BP variability (BPV) is another important factor, along with the effects of HTN on the vasculature. The concept of systemic hemodynamic atherothrombotic syndrome (SHATS) has been proposed, describing an age-related and synergistic vicious cycle of hemodynamic stress and vascular disease. The importance of SHATS is based on the assumption that the assessment of BPV and arterial disease is likely to provide an effective opportunity to intervene early to reduce progression to HTN in younger patients or to CVD events and organ damage in older patients. In addition to providing an overview of current evidence for the mechanisms and clinical data related to SHATS, this article proposes a new SHATS score for use to diagnose and assess the severity of SHATS. The score includes two components – a BP score and a vascular score – which are multiplied to generate the SHATS score. This reflects the synergistic, rather than additive, effects of BP and vascular disease on target organ damage and CVD events. Although it requires refinement and validation in future studies, early detection of SHATS using tools such as the proposed score, combined with population-based stratification and technology-based anticipation medicine incorporating real-time individual data, has the potential to contribute to meaningful reductions in rates of CVD events and target organ damage.