RESEARCH ARTICLE


Long-Term Therapy with Nifedipine-CR Improves Arterio-Sclerosis Related Markers in Patients with Untreated Essential Hypertension



Toshihiro Kita*, Mariko Tokashiki, Kazuo Kitamura
Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Circulatory and Body Fluid Regulation, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, Japan

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2008
Volume: 1
First Page: 1
Last Page: 6
Publisher Id: TOHYPERJ-1-1
DOI: 10.2174/1876526200801010001

Article History:

Received Date: 23/09/2008
Revision Received Date: 26/11/2008
Acceptance Date: 12/12/2008
Electronic publication date: 31/12/2008
Collection year: 2008

© 2008 Kita et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Internal Medicine, Circulatory and Body Fluid Regulation, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake, Miyazaki, 889-1692, Japan; Tel: 81-985-85-0872; Fax: 81-985-85-6596; E-mail: t-kita@po.sphere.ne.jp


Abstract

Increased arteriosclerosis is associated with high risk of cardiovascular events. Several non-invasive markers for arteriosclerosis have been introduced, such as pulse wave velocity (PWV), augmentation index (AI), and carotid properties assessed by echogram, to estimate the current risk and therapeutic merit of antihypertensives. In this study, 17 hypertensive patients were treated with nifedipine-CR alone for one year, and the non-invasive markers were simultaneously monitored every 3 months. Nifedipine-CR treatment achieved stable blood pressure control, and PWV and AI improved in parallel with the blood pressure. Interestingly, the elastic property of the carotid artery progressively decreased and there was a significant difference between the results at 3 and 12 months (85.8 ± 6.1 vs 72.4 ± 5.0 kPa, P = 0.009). Intima- media thickness of the carotid artery also decreased. In conclusion, nifedipine-CR demonstrated a stable anti-sclerotic quality in hypertensive patients and seems to be prominent in large arteries such as the carotid.

Keywords: Pulse wave velocity, augmentation index, elastic property, IMT, nifedipine.