A multi-centre, general practice assessment of a timolol/bendrofluazide combination ('Prestim') in the treatment of mild to moderate hypertension.

A fixed dose combination of 10 mg timolol and 2.5 mg bendrofluazide was evaluated in 1640 general practice patients with mild to moderate hypertension. This was an open study lasting 3 months with an initial 2-week placebo controlled run-in phase. Of the 1315 patients who were evaluable, 1169 (89%) became normotensive on a mean single daily dose of 1.75 tablets. Fifty-four (4%) patients were uncontrolled on a maximum dose of 4 tablets daily and 79 (6%) patients stopped therapy prematurely due to side-effects. A further 13 (1%) patients withdrew because of hypotension or bradycardia. Biochemical parameters stayed within normal values. Overall, the results showed that the combination of timolol and bendrofluazide was an effective and well accepted treatment for mild to moderate hypertension in a large and varied general practice population.