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Nephrol Dial Transplant (2004) 19: 17-20
© ERA–EDTA 2003; all rights reserved

Editorial Comment

Antihypertensive treatment with calcium channel blockers: pharmacological pornography or useful intervention?

Peter Trenkwalder

Department of Internal Medicine, Starnberg Hospital, Ludwig Maximilian University, Starnberg, Germany

Correspondence and offprint requests to: Professor Peter Trenkwalder, MD, Department of Internal Medicine, Starnberg Hospital, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Osswaldstrasse 1, D-82319 Starnberg, Germany. Email: peter.trenkwalder@klinikum-starnberg.de

Keywords: antihypertensive treatment; calcium channel blockers; cardiovascular disease; diabetes; outcome studies

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.



   Introduction
 
More than 40 years after verapamil, the first substance of a new class of drugs, later called calcium antagonists or calcium channel blockers (CCBs) [1], appeared on the cardiovascular stage, these agents are still a matter of extensive debate and never-ending discussions. Originally designed as selective coronary vasodilators, these substances became the best-selling antihypertensive drugs during the late 1980s and early 1990s, without being tested for that indication in a single major cardiovascular trial. I deeply remember the words of Curd Furberg ‘In God we trust, the rest must show data’, when debating the issue of CCBs during a famous session at the congress of the American Heart Association 1995; he finally showed an empty slide with the headline ‘RCTs with CCBs in hypertension’. And we all had to admit, there were no data for CCBs at that time.

Meanwhile, after a period of 8 years, a substantial . . . [Full Text of this Article]



   What pharmacology can tell us
 


   What made the success of the CCBs?
 


   Finally—the long-awaited outcome studies
 


   CCBs in hypertension, what they are and what they aren’t
 

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