February 18th, 2010
Thursday, February 18 News: Renal Outcomes in ACCOMPLISH Published in Lancet
Larry Husten, PHD
The combination of benazepril plus amlodipine was more effective than the combination of benazepril plus hydrochlorothiazide in preventing progression of chronic kidney disease, according to a new report from the Avoiding Cardiovascular Events in Combination Therapy in Patients Living with Systolic Hypertension (ACCOMPLISH) trial published online in the Lancet. ACCOMPLISH investigators had previously reported the main results of the trial, which was stopped early when the benazepril/amlodipine combination was found to be more effective in reducing cardiovascular events in 11,506 high-risk patients. In the new report, Bakris et al. write that this substudy “shows that in patients with hypertension at high risk for cardiovascular events, combination treatment with benazepril plus amlodipine reduces progression of chronic kidney disease more effectively than does benazepril plus hydrochlorothiazide.” However, an accompanying comment by Hiddo Lambers Heerspink and Dick de Zeeuw says that the investigators’ conclusion may be unwarranted, and cites problems with the trial design and a result driven by a single component of a combined endpoint.
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