Clinical implications of indapamide sustained release 1.5 mg in hypertension

Recent international guidelines on the detection, clinical assessment and management of patients with hypertension have highlighted a number of themes that should be incorporated into routine clinical practice. First, although antihypertensive therapy is having a major impact on reducing the incidence of coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and heart failure, community surveys show that most hypertensive patients remain untreated or have suboptimal blood pressure control. Second, the guidelines have emphasised the importance of making an overall assessment of individual patients to gauge their absolute risk of a cardiovascular event; risk factors include not only blood pressure but also target organ damage, the presence of coexisting symptomatic vascular disease and the number of associated cardiovascular risk factors. Patients at the highest risk, especially those with diabetes, the elderly and patients with target organ damage, merit vigorous antihypertensive therapy, and such patients often require treatment with more than one drug to achieve target levels of blood pressure (< 135/80 mm Hg). An additional important theme in recent guidelines has been a move towards using lower dosages and therapies that provide 24-hour blood pressure control with once-daily administration. Since diuretics have been reaffirmed as evidence-based first-line therapy in a broad spectrum of patients with hypertension, especially the elderly, a new lower dosage sustained release formulation of indapamide has been developed (indapamide SR 1.5 mg). Recent multicentre European clinical trials have defined the efficacy and tolerability of indapamide SR 1.5 mg, both relative to other antihypertensive drugs and in key subgroups of patients. Indapamide SR 1.5 mg has an antihypertensive effect, maintained throughout the 24-hour administration interval, equivalent to that of immediate release indapamide 2.5 mg, but the new formulation has even less effect on circulating K+ levels. Indapamide SR 1.5 mg is at least as effective as amlodipine or hydrochlorothiazide. In patients with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), a comparative study of indapamide SR 1.5 mg and enalapril (the LIVE study) used a rigorous unique study design with blinded reading of echocardiograms to show that after 1 year the ACE inhibitor had no significant effect on LVH regression, whereas indapamide SR 1.5 mg produced significant reductions in left ventricular mass index. Diuretic-based therapy for hypertension has been reaffirmed in international guidelines as effective first-line therapy, especially in the elderly and patients with LVH. Indapamide SR 1.5 mg shows an improved efficacy-tolerability profile, with impressive 24-hour effects on blood pressure, important ancillary properties with regard to LVH and cardiovascular protection.