ABSTRACT
Introduction: Hypertension is one of the primary modifiable risk factor for cardiac and renal diseases with the prevalence around 30–45% of the general population, with a steep increase with ageing. The administration of blood pressure-lowering drugs is to reduce the risk of major clinical cardiovascular outcomes. Hypertension guidelines recommend combination therapy in patients with high cardiovascular risk and with subclinical organ damage as well as when monotherapy fails.
Areas covered: As the etiology of essential hypertension is multifactorial, combination therapy using different classes of antihypertensive agents have greater effect than each on its own (synergistic effect), may have better tolerability (two components minimizing each other’s side effects) and lead to improved patient compliance. Several studies assess the hypotensive efficacy on drug combination; there are also studies on triple drug combination.
Expert commentary: At present, dual and triple combination therapy is available to hypertensive patients with good clinical outcomes, compliance and low profile of side effects. It is critical as patients’ adherence to the pharmacological therapy significantly decreases the risk of long-term adverse events including mortality. It appears that combinations not only of hypotensive drugs but also with statins (as well as antidiabetics) will be widely used.
Declaration of interest
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.