Clinical trials in hypertension: the present and perspectives for the future.
Testing antihypertensive drugs solely for their efficacy and safety does not meet modern therapeutic demands. Clinicians need to know how drugs behave during an overdose and how they affect a patient's quality of life. In the future, health economists will be involved much earlier and more intimately in the development of trial methodology, to value a drug's contribution to a patient's lengthened life-span and to compare this effect with the drug's potential contribution to society at large. New trial methodologies will evolve, particularly community trials and case-control (phase IV) studies. Since it is now accepted that control of hypertension alone will not prevent development of coronary artery disease, methodologies and experimental design will focus on 13 major and minor risk factors for coronary artery disease, their interplay with hypertension and their possible control with antihypertensive agents.
Kitler
M E
ME
Maison des Truites, Gilly, Switzerland.
D000368:Aged; D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000517:prevention & control; D006439:Hemodynamics / Q000187:drug effects; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy*
D000959:Antihypertensive Agents