Effects of chronic administration of sarpogrelate on systolic blood pressure of spontaneously hypertensive rats: comparison with quinapril.

Effects of long-term sarpogrelate (5-HT(2) antagonist) administration on the systolic blood pressure of Wistar-Kyoto normotensive rats (WKYs) and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) were studied and compared with those of quinapril (ACE-I). Sarpogrelate and quinapril were administered orally for 12 weeks and body and heart weights, systolic blood pressure and the relationships between heart weight and systolic blood pressure were determined. Although both drug treatments caused decreases in the body weight of WKYs and SHRs, only quinapril induced a decrease in the heart weight of SHRs. In addition, quinapril induced a dose-dependent decrease in systolic blood pressure in WKYs and SHRs while sarpogrelate had no effect on systolic blood pressure. Thus, quinapril showed hemodynamic effects on WKYs and SHRs, but the 5-HT(2) antagonists sarpogrelate did not shown such effects, suggesting that 5-HT(2) receptor antagonists may not be important for controlling systolic blood pressure.