Principal Results of a Prospective Randomised Controlled Study: Morbidity and Mortality after Stroke — Eprosartan Compared with Nitrendipine for Secondary Prevention (MOSES)

The morbidity and mortality after stroke — eprosartan compared with nitrendipine for secondary prevention (MOSES) trial compared the effects of two antihypertensive agents in secondary prevention of stroke. The hypothesis of the trial was that in hypertensive stroke patients, for the same level of blood pressure (BP) control, eprosartan would be more effective than nitrendipine in reducing cerebrovascular and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

A total of 710 patients were assigned to an eprosartan-based regimen and 695 to a nitrendipine-based regimen.These patients had hypertension requiring treatment and documented cerebral ischaemia or haemorrhage. They were well matched at baseline in general characteristics, BP and concomitant disease. BP was lowered to the same extent in both treatment arms, with a very similar timeframe. A high proportion of patients in both treatment arms achieved target BP.

The combined primary endpoint was a composite of total mortality and total number of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events, including recurrent events.There were 206 endpoints in the eprosartan group and 255 endpoints in the nitrendipine group.This represents a statistically significant 21% risk reduction in favour of eprosartan. Eprosartan also had advantages over nitrendipine in respect of all cerebrovascular events and first cardiovascular events.