Therapeutic Research

Abstract

Distinct blood pressure（BP） lowering effect is thought to be important for the prevention of cardiovascular events in hypertensive patients. Therefore we examined the BP lowering effect of telmisartan during 12 months for the treatment in naïve hypertensive patients（n＝2361） who were extracted from prospective practice –based post–marketing surveillance of telmisartan. Additionally, the augmentation of BP lowering effect by raising the telmisartan dose from 20 mg/day to 40 mg /day and the add–on effect of CCB were examined. Telmisartan produced a distinct reduction of BP from baseline（168.3/95.6 mmHg） after 1 month（23.3/11.0 mmHg, p＜0.0001）, after 6 month（30.3/15.2 mmHg, p＜0.0001） and after 12 month（31.7/15.7 mmHg, p＜0.0001）, respectively. Additionally, in 1872 hypertensive patients who received telmisartan monotherapy throughout the study（monotherapy subgroup）, BP decreased by 23.6/11.1 mmHg（p＜0.0001） after 1 month from baseline （166.3/94.4 mmHg）, by 29.1/14.7 mmHg（p＜0.0001） after 6 month and 30.2/14.9 mmHg （p＜0.0001） after 12 month. The effect by raising the telmisartan dose from 20 mg/day to 40 mg/day produced significant BP reduction by 13.4/6.5 mmHg in all naïve hypertensive patients and by 12.9/7.1 mmHg in monotherapy subgroup. The effect adding on CCB to telmisar tan monotherapy gave BP reduction by 14.8/7.9 mmHg, suggesting that the combination therapy is effective. Incidence of the adverse drug reactions was 5.25％ in all naïve patients and 5.13％ in the monotherapy subgroup patients（n＝1872）. These results indicate that telmisartan based therapy is appropriate for the treatment of naïve hypertensive patients.