Cilazapril with hydrochlorothiazide

The number of patients who were dispensed cilazapril with hydrochlorothiazide and other commonly used anti-hypertensives.

24 February 2020

[Name and contact details withheld]

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Thank you for your email of 24 January 2020, asking for the following information:

  • How many patients are being prescribed cilazapril with hydrochlorothiazide currently in the community. 
  • For comparison, could you also include similar information on one or two of the other most commonly used other anti hypertensives. 

For the purposes of responding to your request, we have interpreted it to mean the number of people who are dispensed cilazapril with hydrochlorothiazide currently in the community. 

The number of patients who were dispensed cilazapril with hydrochlorothiazide and other commonly used anti-hypertensives, between January 2019 and December 2019, is provided in the table below.  In this context, a dispensing is defined as being each record in the Pharmaceutical Collection that meets the inclusion criteria and includes each time the pharmaceutical product was an initial dispensing or was dispensed all at once, to the named person from a pharmacy (i.e. it excludes repeat dispensings).  

Patients dispensed anti-hypertensive medication (January 2019–December 2019) 

Chemical Name

Number of patients

Cilazapril with hydrochlorothiazide

64586

Cilazapril

235411

Losartan potassium

72084

Losartan potassium with hydrochlorothiazide

14070

Quinapril with hydrochlorothiazide

25088

Quinapril

88198

In addition to the above request, you also asked for clarification on a statement that was on PHARMAC’s website:

When changing patients to another fixed dose combination it is recommended to monitor blood pressure, renal function and creatinine electrolytes. 

PHARMAC’s website has now been amended, as follows:

When changing patients to another fixed dose combination it is recommended to monitor blood pressure and renal function (creatinine and electrolytes).

Please note your request for this information has been considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). 

PHARMAC approaches its assessment of requests for information under the OIA on the basis that, once released, the information becomes publicly available - in other words once we release the information to you it becomes available to any other party in that exact form (whether by you distributing it to others or by virtue of us receiving the same request from a different third party). 

PHARMAC is making its information more freely available, so we will now publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal details) on our website.  Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this. 

 

Yours sincerely 

 

Rachel Read
Manager, Policy