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Efficacy and tolerance of doxazosin: a review
1Clinical Pharmacology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK.
Insights
Doxazosin effectively lowers blood pressure and is well-tolerated, meeting key criteria for antihypertensive therapy. It also shows potential benefits in preventing coronary heart disease by inhibiting atherogenesis.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Pharmacology
Background:
- Hypertension management aims to prevent coronary heart disease, not just lower blood pressure.
- Evaluating new antihypertensive drugs requires assessing efficacy, tolerability, and administration convenience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate doxazosin as an antihypertensive agent based on established criteria.
- To assess the potential of doxazosin in preventing coronary heart disease.
Main Methods:
- Comparative studies of doxazosin against other antihypertensive agents.
- Evaluation based on predictable blood pressure reduction, target achievement, once-daily dosing, and tolerance.
Main Results:
- Doxazosin meets all primary criteria for antihypertensive therapy.
- Doxazosin demonstrates no adverse effects on serum lipids.
- Doxazosin may directly inhibit atherogenesis in coronary vascular smooth muscle.
Conclusions:
- Doxazosin is a well-tolerated antihypertensive agent meeting key therapeutic criteria.
- Doxazosin offers potential cardiovascular benefits beyond blood pressure reduction, including anti-atherogenic effects.
Abstract:
The objective of therapy in the hypertensive patient is not the reduction of blood pressure (BP), but the prevention of coronary heart disease. Since assessment of the long-term efficacy of therapy takes many years, new antihypertensive agents are evaluated by four main criteria: predictable lowering of BP; achievement of target BP in a high proportion of patients; once daily administration; good tolerance. Comparative studies, mostly against other antihypertensive agents show that doxazosin meets all these criteria and in addition has no adverse effects on the serum lipids and may also act directly on the coronary vascular smooth muscle to inhibit the proliferative stage of atherogenesis.