Blood pressure treatment

Blood pressure treatment recommendations may be about to change as a result of a new study entitled ASCOT TRIAL.

"The Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial (ASCOT) compared two drugs in combination (perindopril and amlodipine), with two other similar, but slightly older drugs (atenolol more bendroflumethiazide).

The study was stopped almost five years earlier, since hypertension patients taking combination of the former were much less likely to experience an MI or stroke than those on the last treatment.

The study focused on 19000 patients and blood pressure began in 1997. Researchers at the Imperial College in London said that precise figures on the effectiveness of this new combination will not be available until the full results of this study were analyzed. They aim to publish an article in a medical journal The Lancet called later in 2005.

ASCOT The study also looked at the origin of drugs for the treatment of cholesterol. This lipid-lowering arm of the study (ASCOT-LLA) was also stopped prematurely in October 2002 after it showed that the blood pressure of patients have benefited from taking atorvastatin whether or not they have high cholesterol.

Only time will tell how these results are important, but it seems that this study will trigger major changes in the way we look at the choice of blood pressure and cholesterol treatments.