Fixed-dose treatment Sevikar superior to combination of perindopril and amlodipine

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According to the SEVITENSION study, which was presented at the European Society of Hypertension annual meeting (14–17 June, Milan, Italy), the fixed-dose combination treatment  (olmesartan/amlodipine) is superior to perindopril in combination with amlodipine in reducing central blood pressure.

A press release reported that SEVITENSION set out to show that olmesartan 40mg/amlodipine 10mg was non inferior to perindopril 8mg/amlodipine 10mg in lowering central blood pressure. The results show not only that this aim was achieved, but also that the reductions in central blood pressure went beyond this and met the criteria of a test for superiority defined by the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products. This means that olmesartan 40mg/amlodipine 10mg was shown to be superior to perindopril 8mg/amlodipine 10mg.


Other secondary endpoints including standard brachial blood pressure and ambulatory blood pressure measurements made over 24 hours also confirmed that olmesartan 40mg/amlodipine 10mg was superior. Another important finding was that three quarters (75.6%) of patients treated with olmesartan 40mg/amlodipine 10mg were able to “normalise” their blood pressure,so that it fell below the level (<140/90 mmHg) recommended by the European Society of Hypertension for all patients with hypertension. The proportion of patients who achieved this level of blood pressure with the perindopril 8mg/amlodipine 10mg combination was nearly 20% lower (57.5%).

“The gold standard since the publication of the CAFÉ study has been the combination of perindopril 8mg/amlodipine 10mg and we compared this with olmesartan 40mg/amlodipine 10 mg, which lowered central blood pressure levels significantly more. The better the response of blood pressure the lower could be the chance of suffering cardiovascular events,” commented Luis Ruilope, the lead investigator of the SEVITENSION study.