Management of Hypertension With a Fixed-Dose (Single-Pill) Combination of Bisoprolol and Amlodipine

Abstract

Hypertension is currently one of the greatest global health care challenges. Although many effective drugs are available, combinations of 2 or more medications are often required to meet clinical targets. Combination therapy has several advantages over monotherapy: lower doses of each drug can be used to achieve therapeutic goals; lower doses may lead to fewer adverse events, facilitating patient adherence; and using multiple drugs with different modes of action may be more effective in treating multifactorial diseases, including hypertension. Adherence is an important consideration when requiring patients to self-administer multiple medications; as the number of concurrent medications increases, patient adherence tends to decrease. Recent evidence suggests that fixed-dose combinations (FDCs) may be more effective than free-dose combinations, as they provide all necessary medications in a single convenient tablet/single-pill combination. Among combinations of hypertension medications, a β-blocker such as bisoprolol with a calcium channel blocker such as amlodipine is an effective combination therapy for hypertension, with distinct and complimentary modes of action. With advantages over free-dose combinations, the FDC of bisoprolol/amlodipine is thus an effective and convenient treatment for hypertension, allowing more patients to achieve their therapeutic goals, while potentially reducing the burden of hypertension on health care systems.

Keywords: amlodipine; bisoprolol; fixed-dose combination therapy; hypertension.