Loading...
Use of α-blockers for treating hypertension declined after the ALLHAT study — which examined initial monotherapy — showed that heart failure developed more frequently in patients who took doxazosin than in those who took other drugs (NEJM JW Gen Med Feb 1 2003 and JAMA 2002; 288:2981). However, α-blockers still are prescribed occasionally as add-on therapy for patients with resistant hypertension, many of whom have impaired renal function.
In this observational study from Canada, researchers identified 381,000 hypertensive patients (age, >65), 4% of whom had received the α-blockers doxazosin or terazosin; the drugs presumably were given for hypertension, because patients with prostatic hyperplasia were excluded. Within this cohort, 16,000 α-…