Blood Pressure Effects of High-Dose Amlodipine-Benazepril Combination in Black and White Hypertensive Patients Not Controlled on Monotherapy

Abstract

Background: Black hypertensive patients are more resistant to angiotensinconverting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor monotherapy than White patients. This resistance can be overcome with the combination of ACE inhibitors with diuretics or calcium-channel blockers (CCBs). Objectives: The objective of this clinical investigation was to evaluate the antihypertensive effectiveness of monotherapy with the ACE inhibitor benazepril or the CCB amlodipine and their combination in Black and White hypertensive patients in two separate studies. Methods: This was a post hoc analysis of data from two separate studies, pooled because of their similarities, to increase the sample size. Outpatient Black and White hypertensive patients were selected for these studies. In study H2303, 201 patients of both sexes and races, whose mean seated diastolic blood pressure (MSDBP) was ‡95 mmHg after 4 weeks of single-blind treatment with benazepril 40 mg/day, were randomized into two groups.