[The regression of left ventricular hypertrophy and improvement in diastolic filling during antihypertensive therapy with cilazapril].

In order to evaluate the effects of cilazapril on left structure and function in essential hypertension, we evaluated 10 patients (4 females and 6 males) affected with mild-to-moderate systemic hypertension. All patients were treated with cilazapril 5 mg/day over a 6-months period and underwent a 24 hours ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and a complete Doppler echocardiographic examination at study entry, after 3 and 6-months of therapy. After therapy, mean systolic and diastolic arterial pressure decreased significantly from 153 +/- 16/102 +/- 8 mmHg to 135 +/- 13/83 +/- 6 mmHg respectively (p < 0.005/0.001 respectively). Moreover there was a significant decrease of left ventricular mass from 109 +/- 27 to 87 +/- 23 g/m2 (p < 0.005). Ejection phase indices did not change significantly, whereas left ventricular diastolic filling improved after therapy with a significant increase of M1/M2 ratio from 0.9 +/- 0.2 to 1.1 +/- 0.3 (p < 0.02). In conclusion, these data demonstrate that cilazapril 5 mg/day is effective in reducing blood pressure in mild-to-moderate essential hypertension. This normalization of blood pressure measurements is paralleled by a significant decrease of left ventricular mass index and by an improvement of left ventricular diastolic filling.