Lessons from ONTARGET
Abstract
The recently published results of the ONTARGET trial shed a new light on the cardiovascular protection of patients at high risk of a cardiovascular event. Despite a number of trials looking at the efficacy of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme inhibitors (ACEis) or Angiotensin Receptor Blockers (ARBs) in the prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with specific high risk profiles, the question of the equivalence of ACEis and ARBs remained unanswered. The ONTARGET trial has shown that telmisartan 80 mg administered for a median duration of 4.5 years to patients at high risk of developing a major cardiovascular event, is equally effective to ramipril 10 mg. In addition, telmisartan was slightly better tolerated. The comparator ramipril has been chosen as it is currently the gold standard ACEi since the results of the HOPE study, in terms of the composite outcome of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction and stroke. Moreover, ONTARGET is the first trial to test the hypothesis of superiority of adding an ARB (telmisartan 80 mg) to an ACEi (ramipril 10 mg) over the ACEi ramipril monotherapy in cardiovascular protection of the same broad range of high-risk patients. Surprisingly, despite a more pronounced blood pressure lower...Continue Reading
References
The angiotensin AT2-receptor mediates inhibition of cell proliferation in coronary endothelial cells
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