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Blood pressure and cardiovascular risk
No cancer programme prevents as many deaths as finding and treating high blood pressure. There is rarely an invitation for it — but it is a five-minute measurement and most countries fund the check.
This page describes screening programmes; it is not a diagnosis, not a personal risk assessment and not a substitute for your own health service. Age bands are set nationally and change — the invitation you receive, and the body named on your country page, outrank anything written here. Screening is for people without symptoms: a new lump, blood you can see, a mole that has changed, unexplained weight loss or a sudden change in vision or hearing needs a clinician now, whatever a recent screening result said.
Where it is organised
Nowhere in this region as an invitation programme. That is a decision rather than an oversight, and the section below explains the reasoning. It also means nothing will arrive in the post: if this is something you want checked, you have to ask for it.
The largest preventable cause of death, checked in five minutes
Cancer screening dominates the conversation, but the arithmetic across a whole population is not close: high blood pressure is the biggest single contributor to premature death in this region and elsewhere, it is silent, it is measurable in minutes with no laboratory, and treating it works. The reason it does not feel like screening is that there is no letter and no programme, only an opportunistic measurement taken when you happen to be in a clinic for something else. Lithuania is the exception in the region, funding a yearly cardiovascular risk check through the family doctor for adults in a defined age band.
How it is measured properly
A blood pressure reading is easy to get wrong in a way that changes the decision. Sit for five minutes first, back supported, feet on the floor, arm supported at heart height, no talking, and use a cuff that fits — a cuff that is too small on a large arm reads high. One raised reading is not hypertension. The diagnosis rests on repeated readings, and increasingly on measurements taken outside the clinic, either at home over several days or with a monitor worn for 24 hours, because white-coat hypertension and masked hypertension are both common. A clinic reading of 140/90 or above is the usual threshold for further assessment.
The rest of the bundle
A cardiovascular risk assessment normally combines blood pressure with a cholesterol panel, a blood glucose or HbA1c, smoking status, weight and family history, and feeds them into a risk equation that estimates the probability of a heart attack or stroke over the next ten years. The output is more useful than any single number, because it is what decides whether treatment is worthwhile: the same cholesterol level means something quite different in a 45-year-old non-smoker and a 65-year-old smoker with diabetes. Ask for the risk estimate, not just the numbers.
The rhythm nobody feels
Atrial fibrillation deserves a mention because it is a silent, common, treatable cause of severe stroke, and it can be found by taking a pulse. An irregular pulse in an older adult is worth an ECG. Whether to screen for it systematically is genuinely contested — Sweden’s national body assessed screening 75-year-olds for atrial fibrillation and recommended against it — but an irregularity noticed opportunistically, or flagged by a watch, is worth having checked properly rather than ignored or panicked over.
Sources: European Society of Cardiology / European Society of Hypertension — office blood pressure threshold of 140/90 mmHg · Valstybinė ligonių kasa (Lithuania) — cardiovascular disease prevention programme · checked 2026-09-07
Häufige Fragen
What blood pressure counts as high?
A clinic reading of 140/90 mmHg or above, confirmed on repeated readings and usually on measurements taken at home or over 24 hours. A single raised reading in a clinic is not a diagnosis.
Does high blood pressure have symptoms?
Usually none at all, which is the whole reason for measuring it. Headaches and nosebleeds are not reliable signs, and waiting for a symptom means waiting for the damage.
How should blood pressure be measured?
Seated, after five minutes of rest, back supported, feet on the floor, arm at heart height, no talking, with a cuff that fits the arm. A cuff that is too small reads falsely high.
Is there a cardiovascular screening programme in this region?
Mostly it is opportunistic — measured when you are in a clinic for something else. Lithuania is the exception, funding a yearly cardiovascular risk check through the family doctor for adults in a defined age band.
The rest of the surface
Breast cancer screening (mammography)
An X-ray of each breast, read by two radiologists, repeated every two years across a band of ages that starts at 40 in Sweden and 50 almost everywhere else. What it finds, what it misses and what a call-back means.
Cervical screening (HPV test)
Almost every country in the region has switched from looking for abnormal cells to looking for the virus that causes them. The test is better, so the gap between tests is longer — and in several countries you can now take the sample yourself.
Bowel cancer screening (stool test)
A sample from one bowel movement, taken at home and posted. It is the only screening programme in the region that routinely prevents cancers rather than only finding them early — because the follow-up removes the polyp.
Prostate screening (PSA)
Latvia and Lithuania fund PSA testing for men in their fifties and sixties. Sweden assessed the same evidence and recommends against an organised programme. Here is what the trials actually found.
Lung cancer screening (low-dose CT)
The trials are positive and the European recommendation asks countries to build programmes stepwise. In this region it is still pilots rather than invitations — but the eligibility rule is worth knowing.
What screening can and cannot do
Overdiagnosis, false positives, interval cases and lead-time bias — the four ideas behind every disagreement between countries.
All 27 screening pagesIf the result is not normal
The record that makes the appointment shorter
TempoLife keeps weight, blood pressure, sleep and symptoms in one place, so the questions you get asked at a screening appointment already have answers.