ABSTRACT
Clinical experience with the new dihydropyridine calcium antagonist; isradipine; is reported. Isradipine was compared with nifedipine in a multicentre open; parallel group; clinical therapeutic trial involving 70 patients with mild to moderate hypertension. A four week placebo washout period was followed by a 12 week active treatment period during which patients were randomized to receive either 2.5mg isradipine twice daily (n=40) or 10mg nifedipine three times daily (n=30). Isradipine significantly reduced sitting systolic/diastolic blood pressures from 176.7+/-21.0/106.7+/-7.0mmHg to 142.9+/-15/93.1+/-7.7mmHg (p0.001) at the end of 12 weeks. Similarly; nifedipine reduced sitting systolic/diastolic blood pressures from 170.1+/-19.5/106.2+/-7.4mmHg to 139.1+/-9.7/92.1+/-7.8mmHg (p0.001). Normalisation (diastolic 90mmHg) rates were 67 per cent and 60 per cent for isradipine and nifedipine respectively while good response (diastolic fall 10mmHg) rate was over 85 per cent on either drug. Heart rate did not significantly change with either treatment. Three (3) patients taking isradipine experienced headache and 7 patients taking nifedipine had drug related adverse effects (5 had headache; 1 insomnia and 1 first dose hypotension). Therapy was withdrawn in 4 patients taking nifedipine and 1 taking isradipine. It is concluded that isradipine is comparable to nifedipine and is an effective and well tolerated antihypertensive agent in the Ghanaian
