Combination Antihypertensive Therapy Among Patients With COPD

Background: COPD and hypertension both increase the risk of congestive heart failure (CHF). Current clinical trials do not inform the selection of combination antihypertensive therapy among patients with COPD. We performed a comparative effectiveness study to investigate whether choice of dual agent antihypertensive therapy is associated with risk of hospitalization for CHF among patients with these two conditions. Methods: We identified a cohort of 7,104 patients with COPD and hypertension receiving care within Veterans Administration hospitals between January 2001 and December 2006, with follow-up through April 2009. We included only patients prescribed two antitypertensive medications. We used Cox proportional hazard models for statistical analysis. Results: Compared with beta-blockers plus an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin II receptor blocker, patients prescribed a thiazide diuretic plus a beta-blocker (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 0.49; 95% CI, 0.32-0.75), a thiazide plus an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin II receptor blocker (adjusted HR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.35-0.71), and a thiazide plus a calcium channel blocker (adjusted HR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.35-0.88) had a significantly lower risk of hospitalization for CHF. After stratification by history of CHF, we found that this association was isolated to patients without a history of CHF. Adjustment for patient characteristics and comorbidities had a small effect on risk of hospitalization. Choice of antihypertensive medication combination had no significant association with risk of COPD exacerbation. Conclusions: Among patients with comorbid hypertension and COPD requiring two antitypertensive agents, combination therapy that includes a thiazide diuretic was associated with a significantly lower risk of hospitalization for CHF among patients without a history of CHF.