American College of Cardiology

ACC 49th Annual Scientific Session
Late-Breaking Clinical Trials
in Interventional Cardiology (#72)
Wednesday, March 15, 2000 (10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.)

(ANAHEIM, CALIF.)—Control of hypertension is a major objective in patients with multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Many drugs that lower blood pressure are available, but physicians have few clinical-trial guidelines to help them choose which may be most beneficial in such cases. That could change soon with the results of a trial that is comparing four families of medications known to lower blood pressure, including three that also improve other conditions known to elevate heart disease risk.

In the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT), more than 42,000 hypertensive patients who have other heart disease risk factors, such as high serum cholesterol or diabetes, were randomized to one of four blood-pressure treatment groups and followed for an expected

Drs. Curt D. Furberg, of Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Barry Davis of the Univ. of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, will present preliminary results from ALLHAT at noon on Wednesday, March 15, at the American College of Cardiology 49th Annual Scientific Session in Anaheim, Calif. The four antihypertensives under study in ALLHAT are the diuretic chlorthalidone; amlodipine, a calcium-channel blocker; lisinopril, an ACE inhibitor; and doxazosin, an alpha adrenergic blocker.

About half of the patients enrolled in ALLHAT, those with elevated serum cholesterol, are participating in a substudy exploring the impact of cholesterol-lowering medication. Dr. Furberg is not scheduled to include the results of that substudy in his presentation.