Rudolf Uhliar, Pavol Tisoň
The aim of the presented study was to document the long-term efficacy and safety of aliskiren and hydrochlorothiazide fixed dose combination in a year follow up under real life clinical practice conditions in 1137 patients with insufficient response to previous antihypertensive therapy. Average systolic (sBP) and diastolic (dBP) blood pressure at baseline was 163.1 ± 16.7 mmHg /96.0 ± 10.0 mmHg. After 12 months the average blood pressure was significantly decreased to 133.4 ± 11.9 mmHg/ 80.3 ± 7.0 mmHg (p < 0.001). Blood pressure decreased more in diabetic patients than in patients without diabetes mellitus, however the difference did not reach statistical significance (31.2 mmHg vs 29.4 mmHg) for sBP (p = 0,07) and (16.3 vs 15.2 mmHg) for dBP (p=0.054). There were no significant changes from the baseline during 12 month follow up in serum kalium levels (4.33 ± 0.41 vs 4.42 ± 0.45) (p = 0.09) and serum creatinine levels (86.5 ± 19.2 vs 85.6 ± 18.2 umol/l) (p = 0.11) respectively. In the subgroup of diabetic patients the baseline glomerular filtration rate was significantly lower than in group without diabetes mellitus (69.24 ± 6.22 vs 73.16 ± 7.1 ml/min) (p = 0.001). There was a significant improvement in glomerular filtration vs. baseline (71.65 ± 6.8 ml/min) in diabetes patients at the end of the study (p = 0.01). In the group without diabetes there were no significant changes in glomerular filtration rate. Our study confirmed the long-term efficacy of fixed dose combination of aliskiren with hydrochlorothiazide in patients with insufficient response to previous antihypertensive therapy under real life clinical practice conditions. We have not documented any negative influence of evaluated therapy either on renal functions in overall patient set or in patients with diabetes mellitus.