gms | German Medical Science

Lercanidipine is a new calcium antagonist belonging to the dihydropyridine family. It has, in spite of a short plasma half-life, a long duration of action due to its lipophilicity. It is as a long-acting calcium antagonist with a good antihypertensive efficacy and tolerability in clinical use. To investigate the efficacy and tolerability of lercanidipine in daily clinical practice 6.637 patients were enrolled in a post marketing surveillance study.

Patients with mild to moderate essential hypertension in whom their physicians considered to prescribe a dihydropyridine were conferred to lercanidipine 10 mg once daily with a 6-week follow-up. 6.637 patients were included into this multicenter observational study (mean +/- SD age 60.1 +/- 12.3 years, 49.8% women and body mass index 27.8 +/- 4.2 kg/m2).

In 96.5% of the cases patients had an essential hypertension. 4564 patients (68.8%) were previously treated with antihypertensive drugs and 2143 patients (32.3%) with more than one medication.

During the 6-week follow-up the blood pressure, heart rate and tolerability regarding the most common site effects of dihydropyridine calcium-channel blockers were measured at baseline, after 3 weeks (approximately) and after 6 weeks.

After 6 weeks the systolic blood pressure (BP) reduced from 166.3 +/- 15.8 to 140.6 +/- 11.4 mmHg, the diastolic from 95.3 +/- 9.3 mmHg to 83.2 +/- 6.7 mmHg.

The mean heart rate did not change (from 76.8 beats/min to 74.5 beats/min).

Over 93% of the patients had a systolic BP reduction of > 10 mmHg, over 71% of > 20 mmHg and over 40% of > 30 mmHg. Over 86% of the patients had a diastolic BP reduction of > 5 mmHg, over 70% of > 10 mmHg and over 44% of > 20 mmHg.

The overall incidence of adverse events was < 1%, of which the most frequent were flushing, headache, and leg oedema.

In this multicenter observational study lercanidipine has shown a significant reduction of systolic and diastolic blood pressure with a placebo-like tolerability.