Efficacy and Safety of Azelnidipine as an Antihypertensive Compared to Amlodipine: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Introduction Azelnidipine is one of the newer Calcium Channel Blockers (CCB) approved in China, Japan, and India. Some studies have found that the blood pressure-lowering effect of azelnidipine is more than amlodipine, and others found the effect similar. Aim This meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of azelnidipine in managing hypertensive patients by lowering Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP), Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP), and Heart Rate (HR) as compared to amlodipine. Methods PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, PROQUEST, and International Clinical Trial Registry Platform (ICTRP) were searched for published articles to evaluate the clinical efficacy of azelnidipine in the management of hypertension patients. Data were extracted from the selected 11 randomized clinical trials (RCTs). The risk of bias 2 (RoB2) tool was used for the quality assessment of the included studies, and the random-effects model was used to estimate the effect size. Results There were no statistically significant differences in the reduction of SBP (Mean Difference, MD: − 1.07; 95% CI: − 4.10, 1.95, p-value: 0.49) and DBP (MD: 0.27; 95% CI: − 2.66, 3.20, p-value: 0.86) between both the drugs. In terms of HR reduction, there was a statistically significant difference (MD: − 3.63; 95% CI: − 5.27, − 2.00, p-value: < 0.0001) between both drugs. Egger’s test excluded any publication bias for the included studies (p = 0.21). Meta-regression excluded the effect of the duration of treatment on outcome parameters. Conclusion Though no significant difference between azelnidipine and amlodipine was found, in terms of reduction in SBP and DBP, azelnidipine reduced heart rate significantly compared to amlodipine. PROSPERO Registration CRD42023390361.