Fixed dosed combinations in the treatment of hypertension

Abstract

Currently cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality worldwide, resulting in approximately one third of all deaths globally. In order to address the role that hypertension plays in the morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular diseases, there is an urgent need for a paradigm shift in global hypertension management and treatment. Obtaining target pressure levels using monotherapy can be a difficult task especially in the case of patients with other associated diseases; consequently modern therapeutic guides recommend combinations of two ore more antihypertensives. Fixed dose combinations associate two or more pharmaceutical substances in a single pharmaceutical formulation; each drug typically working at a separate site, blocking different effector pathways. Compounds that struggle to be efficient in the monotherapy of patients with hypertension often become more effective if combined with another drug; associating drugs with different but complementary mechanism of action often leads to increased therapeutic efficacy. The current review presents the advantages of fixed dose combination and summarizes formulations of common dual, triple combinations used in therapy.

Keywords

• fixed-dose combinations
• hypertension treatment
• antihypertensives