Management of Hypertension-Journey from Single Drug Therapy to Multitargeted Ligand Therapy: A Clinical Overview

Hypertension is recognized as one of the leading risk factors for human morbidity and mortality. It is a major risk factor for myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, stroke, and endstage renal disease. The difficulty in controlling hypertension is related, at least in part, to the complex pathogenesis of hypertension. In spite of the availability of variety of antihypertensive agents, the control of blood pressure in the general population is at best inadequate. It is being recognized that a balanced modulation of several targets can provide a superior therapeutic effect to side effect profile compared to the use of a selective ligand. Fixed combinations of drugs and multitargeted ligands provide answers to the problem of hypertension. This review provides a status report of current antihypertensive drug therapy with fixed combination of drugs and evolvement of multitargeted ligands for better management of the disease.