In medicine, having a holistic vision it means having the ability to evaluate the patient in his entirety and consider the possibility that distant interactions exist between apparently unrelated pathologies. And this also applies to cardiovascular diseases, as underlined at the European Congress of Cardiology. In Italy, only 3 out of ten patients regularly take drugs to reduce blood pressurewith an increased risk of cardiovascular events and one of the problems is the high number of pills to be taken.
In this article
A single pill to keep blood pressure under control
An Italian study recently published in the journal Advances in Therapy demonstrated that a single pill containing a triple drug combination can improve adherence to antihypertensive treatment.
«Many patients with hypertension do not achieve blood pressure control using two antihypertensive agents and require additional medications. In this context we conducted an analysis in Italian clinical practice to evaluate the changes in adherence when the treatment changed from taking two pills to a single pill” he explains Claudio BorghiProfessor of Internal Medicine at the University of Bologna and Director of Cardiovascular Medicine at the S. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic in Bologna.
A base di perindopril, indapamide e amlodipine
“This real-world analysis showed that switching to a triple combination of drugs contained in a single pill may offer an opportunity for improvement in adherence to antihypertensive treatment.” The analysis used data from Italian administrative health databases to evaluate changes in adherence when therapy comprising a pill based on perindopril and indapamide plus a second pill based on amlodipine was replaced by therapy with a single pill containing perindopril, indapamide and amlodipine.
At the conclusion of the study, the percentage of fully adherent patients was significantly higher with the single pill. «Simplifying the intake of the antihypertensive drug by using a triple combination in a single pill can therefore offer an opportunity to improve adherence in clinical practice and in real life» comments Borghi.