While the incidence and prevalence of stroke is gradually decreasing in the western world, a parallel increase is seen in the developing world. It is a matter of special concern to us as approximately 20-30% of stroke occur in people younger than 45 years in India. Indians are prone to higher stroke risk because of urbanization, diabetes, cigarette smoking and high incidence of hypertension. Unfortunately, there is an inadequate awareness about the risk of stroke with hypertension among general public. Hypertension is considered to be the most important risk factor for stroke, and all forms of hypertension are associated with an increased risk of both ischemic and haemorrhagic stroke. The presence of hypertension also worsens mortality in stroke. Recently, it has been increasingly observed that controlling blood pressure variability (BPV) is equally important as achieving BP reduction, and an increased BPV has been shown to increase stroke risk. Thus, effective treatment option for stroke prevention should include drugs which can reduce BPV as well. The landmark ASCOT-BPLA trial reported that the calcium channel blocker amlodipine decreases stroke risk in hypertensive patients, and attributed this beneficial effect to its effective lowering of BPV. Such beneficial effects of amlodipine were replicated in other trials as well and thus it becomes an important drug from an Indian perspective. In this review, we analyse published literature and present a picture on the effect of amlodipine in the stroke prevention in hypertensive patients.
© Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2011.