COMBINATORIAL DRUGS

At the University of Sydney’s Westmead Applied Research Center in Australia, Professor Clara Chow's team has discovered in a long-duration study that a combination of four drugs commonly used to treat blood pressure - at only a quarter of their usual doses - is much more effective in getting blood pressure under control compared to the standard treatment with one or two drugs. The new combination could remarkably bring the blood pressure under control in 80% of the participants within 12 weeks. The four drugs were given in the form of a pill. Apart from the lower concentrations of the drugs required, ease of administering and patient compliance of the new quadruple strategy are obvious additional advantages. This discovery, published recently in Lancet, might contribute to basic changes in the management of patients having high blood pressure. Professor Chow laments that control of hypertension is not ideal anywhere, and in some regions such as Africa fewer than one in ten have it under control. The prevalence of hypertension is expected to increase to 29%(!) of the global population in four years from now