NEW ORLEANS, March 27 (UPI) -- A drug duo appears to give more patients a chance to get high blood pressure under control, say U.S. doctors.
Doctors suggested Tuesday that combination treatment with the direct renin inhibitor aliskiren -- sold as Tekturna -- with the angiotensin receptor blocker valsartan -- sold as Diovan -- could allow more tough-to-get-under-control patients to reach their therapeutic goals.
"Aliskiren and valsartan are both effective antihypertensives, but they function very differently," said Suzanne Oparil, professor of medicine and of physiology and biophysics at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham. "Marrying these two treatment options will give physicians a more effective way to control high blood pressure in their patients."
She said that aliskiren -- the first of the new direct renin inhibitors -- strikes at the top of the cascade of molecular events that leads to the release of angiotensin, implicated in high blood pressure and heart disease. On the other hand, valsartan inhibits the renin system further down the cascade.
Together, "we believe the drugs can control that nasty little peptide, angiotensin, from damaging organs," Oparil said in her presentation at the 56th annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology.
She enrolled 1,797 patients into four treatment groups. Oparil said that 49.3 percent of patients taking the combination of aliskiren and valsartan achieved blood pressure control -- 140/90 mmHg. For aliskiren alone, the control rate was 37.4 percent; valsartan alone 33.8 percent, and placebo 16.5 percent.
There were no serious side effects in any of the dosage groups or the placebo group, indicating that the combination therapy was safe and tolerable for all participants, she said.
