10

Elderly patients prefer transdermal c10nidine to SR verapamil

' ••• These data strongly suggest that improved compliance, and high patient acceptance of transdermal administration of medication, may offer a clinically important therapeutic advantage in antihypertensive therapy.'

Patients with mild essential hypertension, aged ~ 60 years, randomly received either a 3.5, 7 or lO.5cm2 clonidine patch once-weekly (clonidine 0.1-0.3 mg/day) + placebo (n = 29) or a placebo patch + oral sustained release (SR) verapamil 120, 240 or 360 mg/day (29); doses were titrated over a 2-week period. When BP had been controlled for 2 weeks, patients entered an 8-week maintenance period in this double-blind multicentre trial.

BP was significantly reduced during maintenance therapy in both groups and 93% of clonidine and 97% of verapamil recipients achieved goal BP during the titration phase.

While 96-100 and 100% of patients, respectively, applied the active and placebo patch as directed, only 37-69% of patients taking active verapamil tablets and 68-88% of patients taking placebo tablets took all the doses. Transdermal patches were considered to be more convenient than oral medication by 65% of patients and 59% indicated that they preferred transdermal patches to oral medication.

Of the patients experiencing adverse effects, 87% of patients considered them only slightly bothersome or not bothersome. Five clonidine and I verapamil recipient(s) withdrew from therapy because of adverse effects or lack of efficacy. Burris JF. Papademetriou V. Wallin JD. Cook ME. Weidler DJ. Therapeutic adherence in the elderly: transdermal clonidine compared to oral verapamil for hypertension. American Journal of Medicine 91 (Suppl. IA): 22-28. Jul 1991 ""

7 Sep 1991 INPHARMA@ ISSN 0156-2703/91/0907-0010/0$01.00/0 © Adis International Ltd