ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

International Angiology 2001 June;20(2):136-40

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Oxygen-free radical decrease in hypertensive patients treated with lercanidipine

Incandela L., Belcaro G., Cesarone M. R., De Sanctis M. T., Griffin M., Cacchio M., Nicolaides A. N., Bucci M., Barsotti A., Martines G., Cornelli U., Di Renzo A.

From the Irvine2 Vascular Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Chieti University, Chieti, Italy PAP/PEA Institute, San Valentino, Pescara, Italy Irvine Lab., St. Mary’s Hospital-Imperial College and Vascular Unit, Ealing Hospital, London, U.K.

Back­ground. The rela­tion­ship ­between oxi­da­tive ­stress, lipop­ro­teins, car­di­o­vas­cu­lar risk fac­tors and vas­cu­lar dis­ease pro­gres­sion has recent­ly attract­ed fresh atten­tion due to the possibility of measuring free radicals (FRs). The aim of this study was to eval­u­ate blood plas­ma vari­a­tions in oxy­gen FRs in hyper­ten­sive ­patients treat­ed with ler­ca­nid­i­pine, a drug act­ing on blood pres­sure and micro­cir­cu­la­tion.
Meth­ods. Twen­ty-two ­patients with mod­er­ate hyper­ten­sion (M:F=12:10; age=52) and no vas­cu­lar dis­ease (eval­u­at­ed by high-res­o­lu­tion ultra­sound) were treat­ed for 24 weeks with Ler­ca­nid­i­pine (10 mg/day or 20 mg/day if BP val­ues ­did not ­decrease at least 15% after four weeks of treatment). BP was meas­ured at inclu­sion and after 4, 8, 12 and 24 weeks of treat­ment. FRs meas­ure­ments (using the D-Roms test) were made at inclu­sion, at the 8th, 12th and 24th week.
­Results. All ­patients com­plet­ed the treat­ment which was well tol­er­at­ed and with­out side ­effects. Sys­tol­ic and dia­stol­ic BP ­decreased after 8, 12 (p<0.05) and 24 weeks (at 24 weeks sys­tol­ic pres­sure was ­decreased by 21.1%, and dia­stol­ic by 11.1%; p<0.02). FRs lev­els pro­gres­sive­ly ­decreased from 541 Carr Units (SD 54) at inclu­sion to 411 (SD 56) at eight weeks (p<0.05), to 401 (SD 35) (p<0.05) at 12 weeks and final­ly to 398 (SD 33), (p<0.02) at 24 weeks of treat­ment (72.2% of the ­initial value).
Con­clu­sions. The pos­sibil­ity of meas­ur­ing FRs in vivo with a sim­ple, inex­pen­sive test ­allows the identification of sub­jects with a high level of oxi­da­tive ­stress, and the mon­i­toring of the ­effects of treat­ments. Ler­ca­nid­i­pine, act­ing on blood pres­sure, on the micro­cir­cu­la­tion and decreas­ing oxi­da­tive ­stress and Frs plas­ma lev­els may effectively ­decrease the rate of pro­gres­sion of car­di­o­vas­cu­lar dis­eas­es offer­ing the advan­tage of an ­increased level of pro­tec­tion in ­patients with high lev­els of oxi­da­tive ­stress.