Angiotensin II receptor blocker-based therapy in Japanese elderly, high-risk, hypertensive patients.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Amlodipine, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 1164 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

The OlmeSartan and Calcium Antagonists Randomized (OSCAR) study was a multicenter, prospective, randomized, open-label, blinded-end point study of 1164 hypertensive patients aged 65 to 84 years with type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, single-blind, open-label and multicenter study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the Amlodipine group and the comparison group should start out alike.

In this single-blind Amlodipine study one party knew the assignments and the other did not.

Nothing was hidden in this open-label Amlodipine study: the patients and staff both knew the treatment.

Running at several centres spread the Amlodipine study over different clinics and patient groups.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Amlodipine, Angiotensin II Type 1 Receptor Blockers, Azetidinecarboxylic Acid, Calcium Channel Blockers, Cardiovascular Diseases, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 and Dihydropyridines.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, single-blind and open-label study of Amlodipine in 1164 patients.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2012 (The American journal of medicine), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.