'Combination' high blood pressure pills 'cut heart risk more'
19 May, Daily Telegraph
Pills which contain a range of drugs to combat high blood pressure
are better than taking individual tablets at stopping heart attacks and
strokes, according to a study.
They cut the relative chance of having a "serious cardiovascular
complication" over a five-year period by almost 40 per cent, compared to
taking individual pills, found the British study. In absolute terms,
they cut the five-year risk from 13.6 to 8.3 per cent.
Combination pills contain two or three different drugs to help bring
down high blood pressure, which affects some 8.5 million people in
Britain, and is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.Many
people prescribed medication for high blood pressure are elderly and on
other medications, meaning they have lots of separate tablets to take
every day.
The study, funded in part by drugs firm Daiichi Sankyo, which makes
combination pill Sevikar, also analysed the overall costs of managing
patients, including the cost of the pills and any other treatment such
as hospitalisation.It found the average cost per patient was £191.49 for
the combination pill and £189.35 for single tablets, known as
'monotherapy'.
Dr Jonathan Belsey, a health economist and lead author of the study,
published in the Journal of Medical Economics, said: "This analysis
shows that treatment with a combination pill resulted in a clinical
benefit to patients through the reduction in cardiovascular events, and
a benefit to the NHS by reducing healthcare costs associated with
complications of poor blood pressure control, particularly heart attacks
and stroke.
"Dr Peter Coleman, deputy director of The Stroke Association, said:
"Many people with high blood pressure are required to take multiple
pills every day to reduce their blood pressure and therefore reduce
their risk of stroke, but calculating when each pill needs to be taken
can often be confusing."Combining the pills into one could make taking
the medication much simpler.
"However, it's important to note that these combination pills might
not be suitable for everyone and they may have side effects so every
patient should be assessed and treated on an individual basis."
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