Loading...
What is the best first-line treatment for patients with hypertension? According to current guidelines — based largely on randomized trials that are more than 2 decades old — thiazide or thiazide-like diuretics, angiotensin-converting–enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs), and calcium-channel blockers (CCBs) are acceptable first-line therapies (NEJM JW Gen Med Dec 15 2017 and J Am Coll Cardiol 2018; 71:127).
Researchers analyzed data from nine large observational databases from four countries (with data on 4.9 million patients with as long as 22 years of follow-up) and synthesized tens of thousands of between-drug comparisons in patients whose initial treatment was a single drug from any of the aforementioned classes (…