In the study, patients who received lisinopril alone or with nitrates within 24 hours of onset of heart attack symptoms in addition to standard therapy had an 11 percent lower risk of death after six weeks, compared to patients receiving no lisinopril. Among the group of patients receiving lisinopril, the six-week mortality rate was 6.4 percent, compared with 7.2 percent in the patients receiving no lisinopril. In contrast, patients who received transdermal nitrate with standard therapy experienced a 2.8 percent reduction. In contrast, other studies looked at the effect of a drug in particular sets of high-risk patients, such as those who already had heart failure or reduced ejection fraction.
Heart attack is the single largest killer of American males and females.
Of the 1.5 million Americans who have heart attacks each year, about a third of them die as a result. In addition to the new use, Prinivil is indicated for the treatment of all degrees of high blood pressure and can be used either alone or in combination with other therapies for high blood pressure. It is also indicated as adjunctive therapy to diuretics and digitalis in the management of heart failure in patients who are not responding adequately to those drugs. Prinivil is an ACE inhibitor, a class of drugs prescribed to more than 6 million patients in the United States, primarily for the treatment of high blood pressure or congestive heart failure. Prinivil is contraindicated in patients who are hypersensitive to any component of the medication and in patients with a history of angioedema related to previous treatment with an ACE inhibitor.