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Studies A-Z > P > Pathway
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The Pathway programme consists of three hypertension studies funded by the British Heart Foundation.
The purpose of Pathway 1 is to test whether the current custom of initiating treatment for hypertension with a single drug is less effective in the short term than initial combination therapy, and results in the eventual need for comparatively more antihypertensive drug therapy.
Pathway 2 includes patients with inadequate control of hypertension, despite taking three anti-hypertensives ie an ACE inhibitor, a calcium channel blocker, and a diuretic (A+C+D). The study aims to prove whether using spironolactone is superior to other add-on drugs and to examine the difference in home BP between the best drug predicted by the patient’s plasma renin and the observed best drug.
Pathway 3 is for patients with inadequate blood pressure control despite treatment with three drugs. The study tests the hypothesis that the most common cause of resistant hypertension is excessive sodium retention, and that further diuretic therapy will be superior to other potential " add-on drugs".