[Clinical value of degree of blood pressure lowering during use of effective doses of antianginal drugs].

Paired exercise tests with single doses of verapamil, nifedipine, propranolol, buccal nitroglycerin (trinitrolong), sustained release oral nitroglycerin, and placebo were performed in 101 patients with stable class II-III angina and the drug causing longest exercise duration was selected for long term therapy. Efficacy of a selected drug was compared with magnitude of its hypotensive effect. The latter was calculated as difference between blood pressure (BP) before and 2 hours after drug administration. Lower quintile of distribution of BP differences (systolic BP difference >20 mm Hg and/or diastolic BP difference >15 mm Hg) was considered as excessive hypotensive effect of a study drug (EHESD) single dose. Exercise duration before ST-segment depression was significantly shorter (p<0.05) in cases with EHESD compared with those without EHESD. After 1 month of therapy total daily number of episodes of myocardial ischemia decreased by 3.2+/-3.0 and 1.8+/-1.2 in patients without and with EHESD, respectively (p<0.02). At the same time number of episodes of painless ischemia increased more than 2 times in patients with EHESD (p<0.01). Registration of EHESD at initial stages of treatment with short acting antianginal drugs appears to be a reliable marker of increased frequency of painless episodes of myocardial ischemia and low efficacy of regular use of these drugs.