Background
Ethnic and/or racial differences in drug response to antihypertensive agents have been recognized, yet the prescribing practices and the information on efficacy of various agents rely mainly on the response of whites to drugs.
Objectives
To assess the management of hypertension in Asian Americans and to compare it with an age- and sex-matched group of white patients with hypertension.
Methods
The patients' medical records were used as the primary source of information for the data collection. The observational period was a 12-month window and included 200 patients of Asian origin with hypertension and 196 white patients with hypertension whose medical records were randomly selected.
Results
The study describes the pattern of use of antihypertensive agents and the differences in response to antihypertensive agents between Asian Americans and whites. The preferred antihypertensive agents in both Asian and white patients included monotherapy with either calcium channel blockers or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. However, medication changes, dose reduction, and the experience of side effects were all significantly more frequently recorded in Asian patients than in white patients (P<.001, P<.008, and P<.002, respectively).
Conclusions
These findings are supportive of some previous reports on ethnic differences in drug response to antihypertensive agents. The findings also point to the need for further prospective studies on the outcome of hypertension management in Asian American patients.
Arch Intern Med. 1997;157:1345-1348
