Efficacy and Safety of Amlodipine in the Treatment of Essential Hypertension

Bae, Jong Hoa; Lee, Yung; Yoo, Won Sang; Kim, Sam Soo

Abstract

The antihypertensive efficacy and safety for once daily dosing of amlodipine, a new calcium channel blocker, was studied in a series of 36 patients with essential hypertension. The starting dose of amlodipine were 5mg/day, which were doubled after 4 weeks, if normalization of diastolic blood pressure was not reached. Amlodipine induced a clinically significant reduction in blood pressure(17.7mmHg in systolic blood pressure and 11.9mmHg in diastolic blood pressure) with similar heart rates after 12 weeks therapy. The efficacy of amlodipine therapy was noted an excellent in 18 patients(51.4%), good in 8 patients(22.9%), fair in 5 patients(14.3%), and failed in 4 patients(11.4%). There were few side reactions such as fatigue, headache, constipation and indigestion, but all studied patients completed for 12 weeks therapy except one patients who did not return. And also there was no abnormal results of laboratory tests before and after the amlodipine therapy. This results indicated that amlodipine is an effective and safe new long-acting calcium channel blocker in the treatment of hypertension.