Nuclear imaging study of nifedipine induced modulations of central haemodynamics in severe hypertension with and without coronary artery disease.

Acute effects of Nifedipine, a calcium channel blocking agent (CCBA), on central haemodynamics in patients with severe hypertension and angiographically proved coronary artery disease (CAD) has been studied using Nuclear Ventriculography (MUGA). While peripheral vasodilatation leads to significant reduction of systemic blood pressure in all severe hypertensive patients (p < 0.0005 and p < 0.0001), the central haemodynamics did not improve significantly in patients without CAD (p = NS). However, in hypertensive subset of CAD, central haemodynamics significantly improves with rise of global ejection fraction (p < 0.001) and improvement of wall motion abnormalities (p < 0.001).