Effects of losartan on left ventricular mass: a three-year follow-up in elderly hypertensives with myocardial hypertrophy despite successful conventional antihypertensive treatment.

Objective: Reversal of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in hypertensive patients appears to be a desirable goal to the reduction cardiac risk. The Renin-Angiotensin System (RAS) seems to play a major role in the establishment and maintenance of LVH through the activated systemic RAS and the Intracardiac Angiotensin System (IAS). We focused on the effects of a three-year treatment with losartan supplement in hypertensive patients with LVH not responding to eight years of an effective previous antihypertensive pharmacological treatment.

A rare combination consisting of aldosterone-producing adenoma and adrenal myelolipoma in a patient with heterozygosity for retinoblastoma (RB) gene.

Various pathological disorders have been associated with primary aldosteronism, including glucagonoma, phaeochromocytoma and primary hyperparathyroidism. In this report, a case of adrenal myelolipoma (a rare non-functioning tumour composed of mature adipose tissue and normal haematopoietic elements similar to bone marrow cells), aldosterone-producing adenoma and a pituitary microadenoma coexisting in a 62-year-old man with a 15-year history of arterial hypertension, previous ablation of an autonomously-functioning thyroid adenoma, multiple lipomas and an heterozygosity of the retinoblastoma (RB) susceptibility gene is reported. We believe that this case probably represents another variant of the multiple neoplasia syndrome and we speculate that structural alteration of the RB gene may play a role in the tumorogenesis.

The prevention of dementia with antihypertensive treatment: new evidence from the Systolic Hypertension in Europe (Syst-Eur) study.

Background: After the double-blind, placebo-controlled Systolic Hypertension in Europe (Syst-Eur) trial ended in February 1997, randomized patients were offered active study medication for a further period of observation.

Objective: To refine the estimates of the long-term effects of antihypertensive therapy on the incidence of dementia.

Methods: Eligible patients had no dementia and were at least 60 years old.

Quality of life on randomized treatment for isolated systolic hypertension: results from the Syst-Eur Trial.

Objective: To compare quality of life in elderly patients with isolated systolic hypertension allocated randomly to groups to receive placebo or active treatment in the Systolic Hypertension in the Elderly Trial.

Design: Double-blind randomized controlled trial.

Methods: Patients aged 60 years were allocated randomly to groups to receive first-line treatment with nitrendipine (with second- and third-line enalapril and hydrochlorothiazide) or placebo.

Prevention of dementia in randomised double-blind placebo-controlled Systolic Hypertension in Europe (Syst-Eur) trial.

Background: Systolic hypertension increases the risk of dementia in elderly people. The vascular dementia project, set up in the framework of the double-blind placebo-controlled Systolic Hypertension in Europe (Syst-Eur) trial, investigated whether antihypertensive drug treatment could reduce the incidence of dementia.

Methods: Eligible patients had no dementia, were at least 60 years old, and had a blood pressure when seated of 160-219 mm Hg systolic and below 95 mm Hg diastolic.

Quality of life of elderly patients with isolated systolic hypertension: baseline data from the Syst-Eur trial. Syst-Eur Trial Investigators.

Objective: To describe measures of quality of life of elderly patients with isolated systolic hypertension at entry to a placebo-controlled randomized trial of antihypertensive treatment and to investigate factors associated with these.

Design: Cross-sectional analyses at entry to a randomized controlled trial.

Setting: Patients attending hypertension clinics or general practitioners' surgeries at 30 centres in 10 European countries.

Technetium-99m sestamibi myocardial tomography based on dipyridamole echocardiography testing in hypertensive patients with chest pain.

The non-invasive diagnosis of coronary artery disease in hypertensives with chest pain is an important clinical concern because all exercise-dependent tests display limited feasibility and diagnostic accuracy; by contrast, dipyridamole echocardiography testing has been shown to have a similar feasibility and accuracy in hypertensive and normotensive subjects. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic capability of technetium-99m sestamibi tomography based on dipyridamole echocardiography testing in hypertensives with chest pain, and to compare the scintigraphic results with those of coronary angiography, exercise electrocardiography and dipyridamole echocardiography. Forty subjects with mild to moderate hypertension, chest pain and no previous myocardial infarction were submitted to 99mTc-sestamibi tomography (at rest and after high-dose dipyridamole echocardiography) and to exercise electrocardiography testing.

[Clinical use of echo-dipyridamole test in hypertensive subjects with suspected ischemic heart disease].

The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic capacity of the dipyridamole-echocardiography test (DET) and dipyridamole myocardial scintigraphy (DMS) for coronary artery disease in mild to moderate hypertensive subjects with chest pain. A comparison was performed with exercise stress test (EST) and stress myocardial scintigraphy (SMS) in 20 subjects. Seven patients also underwent coronary angiography.

Efficacy and tolerability of enalapril (20 mg)/hydrochlorothiazide (12.5 mg) combination therapy in essential hypertension.

The efficacy and tolerability of a preconstituted formulation combining enalapril (20 mg) and hydrochlorothiazide (12.5 mg) were evaluated in patients with essential hypertension unresponsive to enalapril monotherapy (20 mg/day). The duration of this open-lable, multicenter, noncomparative trial was 12 weeks: a two-week washout period followed by ten weeks of active treatment.

Felodipine ER formulation in the treatment of mild hypertension: efficacy and tolerability vs placebo.

1. Felodipine is a new calcium-antagonist dihydropyridine derivative with a high degree of selectivity for smooth muscle of arteriolar resistance vessels, as opposed to cardiac cells. 2.

[Effects of medium-term treatment of acebutolol on lipid profile].

The effects of a 12-week treatment with acebutolol on serum lipids have been studied in 18 patients. Acebutolol was given as a 400-, 600-, or 800-mg single daily dose in the morning. Standing and supine blood pressure diminished significantly, whereas the major indexes of lipid metabolism such as total serum cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and plasma lipoproteins were not significantly affected.

[Evaluation of the efficacy and tolerability of a fixed dose combination of captopril (CPT) 50 mg and hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) 15 mg in the elderly].

In this double blind study we have evaluated the efficacy and tolerability of the association Captopril 50 mg + hydrochlorothiazide 15 mg/die vs hydrochlorothiazide 25 mg/die in aged patients with hypertension. Both drugs showed a good antihypertensive efficacy, and a better efficacy on diastolic blood pressure was shown by the association Captopril + hydrochlorothiazide.

[Multicenter clinical study of the antihypertensive activity of lisinopril].

One-hundred patients suffering from slight-moderate hypertension (53 m, 47 f, aged between 18 and 78, average 49.08) have been studied in order to assess the effectiveness and tolerance of lisinopril ("Zestril", ICI-Pharma), a new ACE inhibitor in a single daily administration at doses of between 10 and 80 mg in relation to pressure values. Monotherapy with Lisinopril proved effective in 84 patients (88.