Antihypertensive and metabolic effects of hydrochlorothiazide versus amlodipine when added to losartan in patients with type 2 diabetes

Adherence to Single-Pill Versus Free-Equivalent Combination Therapy in Hypertension: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Poor adherence to antihypertensive therapy is a major cause of poor blood pressure (BP) control in patients with hypertension. Regimen simplification may improve adherence and BP control. This systematic review assessed whether single-pill combination (SPC) therapy led to improved adherence, persistence, and better BP control compared with free-equivalent combination (FEC) therapy in patients with hypertension. PubMed, Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were searched until July 2020, in addition to manual searching of relevant congress abstracts from 2014 to 2020 for studies including adults with hypertension aged ≥18 years receiving SPC or FEC antihypertensive therapy measuring any of the following: adherence, persistence, and reductions in systolic BP and/or diastolic BP. Adherence and persistence were summarized in a narrative analysis; direct pair-wise meta-analysis was conducted to compare BP reductions with SPC therapy versus FEC therapy using fixed-effect and random-effects models. Following screening, 44 studies were included. The majority (18 of 23) of studies measuring adherence showed adherence was significantly improved in patients receiving SPCs versus FECs. Overall, 16 studies measured persistence, of which 14 showed that patients receiving SPCs had significantly improved persistence or were significantly less likely to discontinue therapy than patients receiving FECs. Systolic BP (mean difference, -3.99 [95% CI, -7.92 to -0.07]; P=0.05) and diastolic BP (-1.54 [95% CI, -2.67 to -0.41]; P=0.0076) were both significantly reduced with SPC therapy compared with FEC therapy at week 12. SPC therapy leads to improved adherence and persistence compared with FEC therapy and may lead to better BP control in patients with hypertension.

Amlodipine Vs. hydrochlorothiazide: is there any disparity in its antihypertensive effect or not?

We have read the article “Comparison of effects between calcium channel blocker and diuretics in combination with angiotensin II receptor blocker on 24-h central blood pressure and vascular hemodynamic parameters in hypertensive patients: study design for a multicenter, double-blinded, active controlled, phase 4, randomized trial” by GC Oh., et al. and found it quite interesting to learn the testing of effectiveness between amlodipine and hydrochlorothiazide in combination with losartan. After 4 weeks of therapy, non-responders were exposed for dose titration of losartan/amlodipine 100/5 mg daily or losartan/hydrochlorothiazide 100/25 mg daily. However, authors didn’t increase in the amlodipine dose from 5 to 10 mg from randomization. However, as per literature both drugs are non-significant in their blood pressure lowering effect. The clarification on above point will further allay the efficacy concerns of clinicians and result in wider usage of future published data.