The Valsartan Antihypertensive Long-term Use Evaluation (VALUE) trial of cardiovascular events in hypertension. Rationale and design.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Angiotensin II and Amlodipine in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Essential hypertension is a major Public Health issue.

The role of angiotensin II in systemic hypertension and its complications has been recently redefined.

Who Took Part

The study group was 14,400 patients.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

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

Because people in this Angiotensin II study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Angiotensin II study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

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

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

What Was Measured

Of all ongoing mortality and morbidity trials in systemic hypertension, VALUE (Valsartan Antihypertensive Long-term Use Evaluation) is the only one comparing an angiotensin II antagonist (valsartan) with a third-generation calcium channel blocker (amlodipine).

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Amlodipine, Angiotensin II, Antihypertensive Agents, Calcium Channel Blockers, Cardiovascular Diseases, Hypertension and Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study of Angiotensin II and Amlodipine in 14,400 patients.

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

The publication is from 1998 (Blood pressure), a journal based in England.

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