Association between cough and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors versus angiotensin II antagonists: the design of a prospective, controlled study

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Angiotensin II in this randomized controlled trial publication.

A common adverse experience in hypertensive patients treated with angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors is a tickling dry cough.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, both men and women.

Patients with a history of an ACE inhibitor-associated dry cough confirmed by a second challenge with lisinopril were enrolled into an international, multicenter, randomly allocated, double-blind, parallel-group, controlled trial, to be treated with losartan, lisinopril or hydrochlorothiazide.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, multicenter and parallel-group.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Angiotensin II and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Angiotensin II, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

More than one site took part, so the participants came from several places.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the participants stayed in one arm throughout.

The presence and severity of cough were assessed by a self-administered questionnaire and a visual analog scale, respectively.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Angiotensin II, Antihypertensive Agents, Biphenyl Compounds, Cough, Hydrochlorothiazide, Hypertension and Imidazoles.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study of Angiotensin II.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 2 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 1994 (Journal of hypertension. Supplement : official journal of the International Society of Hypertension), a journal based in England.

More context: the Angiotensin II compound page, all human trials.