Effectiveness of nitrendipine, 20 mg once daily in the management of hypertension in general practice.

The effectiveness of nitrendipine, given as a single 20 mg tablet in the morning, was evaluated in general practice in 6,058 hypertensive patients. They filled in a questionnaire on their activities and previous antihypertensive treatment, if any. Visits were planned after 2, 6, and 12 weeks. Then, patients and general practitioners gave their assessment of the treatment. Eighty-four percent completed the 12-week study while receiving 20 mg of nitrendipine once daily. Adverse events were observed in 26% of the patients, mainly during the first 2 weeks, where flushing and peripheral edema occurred in 9 and 7% of the patients, respectively. Both led to withdrawal of 4% of the included patients over 3 months. A supine diastolic blood pressure below 90 mm Hg was achieved in 65% of the patients, irrespective of age, sex, activity, smoking habits, and presence of diabetes or previous antihypertensive therapy. In conclusion, this large-scale study further established the effectiveness of nitrendipine as monotherapy given once daily in most hypertensive patients. Eight patients in 10 felt they had benefited from the treatment. The investigators were satisfied with the results in 66% of the patients. They considered that the main advantage of nitrendipine was ease of use.