CLINICAL AND ECONOMIC OUTCOMES OF A NIFEDIPINE-TO-FELODIPINE SWITCH PROGRAM

Extended-release nifedipine and felodipine have been shown equally eff ective and safe in patients with hypertension. Because felodipine has a lower acquisition cost at our institution, we implemented a voluntar y therapeutic switch program to convert nifedipine-treated hypertensiv es to equipotent felodipine therapy. One year later, we collected data on 250 randomly selected felodipine-treated patients to determine the effect of the switch on blood pressure control, drug tolerability, an d overall treatment costs (drug acquisition cost and costs of suppleme ntal antihypertensive therapy, clinic visits, tablet wastage, and phar macist time). Of the 250 patients, 127 met inclusion criteria Pre-and postswitch blood pressure levels and adverse-effect rates were highly similar for these patients. Extrapolating their postswitch outcomes an d costs to all 1,029 patients converted in the program's first year yi elds estimated net savings in this population of $65,457 for the first year and $144,100 in cost avoidance each year thereafter.