Survival continue to improve after a decade with blood pressure and cholesterol lowering drugs

Blood pressure and cholesterol lowering drugs continue to improve survival in patients with hypertension after more than a decade, according to late breaking results from the ASCOT Legacy study presented today at ESC Congress 2018 and published in The Lancet.

Dr Ajay K. Gupta, of the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University London, UK, said: “Patients in their mid-60s with high blood pressure were less likely to die from heart disease or stroke by age 75-80 if they had taken both calcium channel blocker-based blood pressure lowering treatment and a statin.”

The ASCOT Legacy study is the long-term follow-up of 8,580 patients from the UK who took part in the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial (ASCOT), which between 1998 and 2000 recruited patients with high blood pressure and three or more additional risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Patients who took a newer blood pressure lowering treatment (based on a calcium channel blocker) for 5.5 years were 29% less likely to have died from a stroke ten years later than those taking an older regimen (based on a beta-blocker). There was a non-significant trend towards 10% fewer cardiovascular deaths with the newer therapy.

Source: Blood pressure and cholesterol lowering drugs continue to improve survival after a decade