Antihypertensive Effects and Safety of Isradipine in Patients with Essential Hypertension

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Antihypertensive treatment represents the modification of one of the most important risk factors on the development of cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and peripheral vascular disease. In cases of markedly developed atherosclerosis, reduction of blood pressure can improve the survival of patients by reducing the incidence and/or severity cerebrovascular events. We studied a new dihydropyridine calcium antagonist isradipine to evaluate the efficacy and safety in patients with essential hypertension. METHOD: After a placebo run-in phase of four weeks duration, 2.5mg isradipine once daily orally was administered for four weeks to 84 patients (48 males, 36 females ; mean age ; 50.8 years). And then 5.0mg isradipine once daily was administered for four weeks to 59 patients whose diastolic pressure did not decrease less than 90 mmHg. RESULTS: 1) At the end of 8 weeks of therapy, systolic and diastolic blood pressure were significantly reduced from 158.2+/-11.5/101.7+/-5.1mmHg in sitting, 156.8+/-13.7/102.3+/-5.6mmHg in standing to 138.3+/-13.8/90.1+/-6.7mmHg in sitting, 137.6+/-13.7/91.2+/-7.6mmHg in standing (p<0.001). And the effectiveness rate was 84.3% in sitting, 83.2% in standing and normalization rate below 90mmHg in diastolic pressure was 67.5% in siting and 61.5% in standing position. 2) The sitting and standing pulse rate did not change significantly (72.7+/-7.4beats/min at baseline vs. 73.4+/-6.8 beats/min after 8 weeks trial in sitting, 73.5+/-7.2beats/min at baseline vs. 74.1+/-7.2 beats/min after 8 weeks trial in standing). 3) The reduction of mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure at the end of 8 weeks were 19.9/11.6mmHg in sitting and 19.2/11.1mmHg in standing. 4) At the end of 8 weeks the successes of therapy in sitting were 67.5% in excellent, 10.8% in good, and 6.0% in fair response. 5) There was no serious side effect except mild symptom of 5 cases(5.9%) of exertional dyspnea and one episode of (1.2%) tachycardia. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that isradipine is effective and safe antihypertensive agent in the treatment of essential hypertension.