Review of international safety data for lisinopril-hydrochlorothiazide combination treatment

A total of 930 patients have been evaluated for safety in a programme of clinical trials for lisinopril-hydrochlorothiazide combination treatment. Combination therapy with these two agents is generally well tolerated. In clinical trials, adverse experiences in patients treated with a lisinopril-hydrochlorothiazide combination were dizziness (7.5%), headache (5.2%), cough (3.9%), fatigue (3.7%), orthostatic effects (3.2%), diarrhoea (2.5%), nausea (2.2%) and upper respiratory tract infection (2.2%). Withdrawals from treatment have been relatively infrequent comprising dizziness (0.8%), headache (0.3%), cough (0.6%), fatigue (0.4%), diarrhoea (0.2%), orthostatic effects and nausea (0.1% each). The most common laboratory adverse experiences in patients on therapy with the lisinopril-hydrochlorothiazide combination are: increases in serum glucose, triglycerides, uric acid, serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen and blood urea; and decreases in serum potassium. However, in individual controlled studies, the addition of lisinopril to treatment with hydrochlorothiazide results in attenuation of some of the potentially adverse metabolic affects of the diuretic. Adverse experiences in the patients treated for periods of 50 weeks or more, the elderly and the renally impaired are similar to those seen in the total population. Overall the available data indicate that a fixed dose combination of lisinopril-hydrochlorothiazide is a well-tolerated therapeutic option in patients with mild-to-moderate hypertension.