Many high risk patients do not receive cholesterol-lowering...( terol but less than one-fifth (17.3 pe...),Health

terol, but less than one-fifth (17.3 percent) were already on statin therapy when they started treatment for high blood pressure and only a third (29.4 percent) began taking statins in the first year. More than half of these patients 53.3 percent received no statin therapy at all during the first year after starting hypertension medication.

In the group of patients who had high blood pressure and established heart disease (14,647 patients), just 11.5 percent were on statin therapy already, with an additional 30.9 percent starting during the first year. Yet again, more than half (57.6 percent) of this group did not receive a statin. Similarly, for the study populations with diabetes (17,567 patients) and with 3 or more heart disease risk factors (15,701 patients), the majority did not receive a statin in the first year (61 percent and 53.7 percent, respectively).

"While research demonstrates that statin therapy could benefit hypertension patients who have other cardiac risk factors, the majority of these patients were not receiving cholesterol-lowering statin drugs," said Richard H. Chapman, Ph.D., of ValueMedics Research and lead author of the study. "Statins are the standard of care for this group of patients, and they should be prescribed along with antihypertensive therapy. Failing to do so may restrict patients' access to potentially life-saving treatment."

Aliskiren, an Oral Renin Inhibitor, Provides Dose-Dependent Efficacy, and Placebo-Like Tolerability in Patients with Hypertension (Abstract 1027-191)

Physicians who treat people with hypertension continually seek better treatment options with fewer side effects for their patients. Aliskiren is the first in a new class of orally-administered renin inhibitors, and is under investigation for the treatment of hypertension, or high blood pressure. Renin is an enzyme produced in the kidneys that helps create angiotensin I and II, a hormone which constricts the arterie
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14-Mar-2006

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