Telmisartan combination trial, an investigator-initiated research study, was conducted at the Apollo Group of Hospitals, Hyderabad, to utilise combination anti-hypertensive drug therapy to achieve the new guidelines recommended target blood pressure level of =<130/80 mm Hg in patients with hypertension. The trial, also known as the TelCom Study, was carried out under the leadership of Prof Dr. C Venkata S Ram, with support of Mankind Pharma.
The study evaluated the effects of combining Telmisartan, an angiotensin-receptor-blocker (ARB)– with a calcium channel blocker (CCB), either Amlodipine or Cilnidipine, in patients with hypertension. The study group included 94 patients who received either Telmisartan + Amlodipine or Telmisartan + Cilnidipine at standard recommended doses. The patients were followed for eight weeks on treatment. The results showed that:
- The combination of Telmisartan with Amlodipine or Cilnidipine effectively lowered the blood pressure to target levels. Both outpatient clinic and 24 hour blood pressure levels were reduced by the treatment.
- The treatments also lowered central aortic blood pressure levels.
- Blood pressure was recorded with automated devices per the new guidelines.
- 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure was measured with a cuffless method.
The TelCom Study is first of a kind to apply the latest therapeutic guidelines for hypertension utilising the latest cutting-edge method for measuring blood pressure. The study was published online in the American Journal of Cardiology.
“Studies of this nature of public health importance can be done in India and are worthy of publication in reputed global medical journals. One moral is that academic clinicians in India should be given “protected time” to do quality research, as done in the Western countries. Unless our doctors are assured of “protected time”, they will lag behind their western counterparts in clinical research”, commented by Prof Dr Ram, the lead investigator of TelCom study.
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