Rationale for combination therapy as initial treatment for hypertension.

Recent hypertension guidelines recommend initiating antihypertensive therapy with a combination of two or more agents in patients whose blood pressure exceeds their appropriate blood pressure goal by 20/10 mm Hg. This recommendation is based on the knowledge that the majority of patients with blood pressures of this magnitude will not achieve sufficient blood pressure reduction with monotherapy. Further, compared with high-dose monotherapy, combination therapy is often associated with fewer adverse effects and, for this reason, may improve patient adherence. Bringing patients to blood pressure goal quickly is likely to improve clinical outcomes. This article discusses the rationale for using combination antihypertensive therapy as initial therapy for high blood pressure in selected patients and reviews data from a study of 364 high-risk patients with Stage 2 hypertension in which a fixed-dose combination product (amlodipine besylate/benazepril HCl) proved more successful as initial therapy than high-dose monotherapy (amlodipine besylate) in reducing blood pressure.