Bedtime versus at awakening administration of BP lowering drugs--is it the way to success?

The "manometric" way of considering the complex management of high blood pressure (HBP) must remain ancient history. The huge therapeutical armamentarium existing nowadays allows us to select the drug/s most appropriate for the comorbidities/particularities of each case. The BP level target, unanimously considered a very important element of HBP management, must not be the only one. The so-called pleiotropic effects of the different classes of antihypertensive drugs must always influence our way of thinking. Another important possibility to improve the therapeutical efficacy of the antihypertensive treatment is chronotherapy. The aim of the present study is to demonstrate the possibility of some benefic effects by imposing, by chronotherapy, a "normal" "dipping" status of the BP values. Among the surrogate end-points that can be used to demonstrate the benefits of this kind of HBP management we chose the structural and functional cardiac parameters, echocardiographically determined--using the criteria of the American Society of Echocardiography. We studied the evolution of these parameters of the left ventricle (LV) and we have evaluated them after 3 months of once-a-day morning (at awakening) administration, and respectively after 3 months of once-a-day administration in the evening (at bedtime) of: Prestarium (perindopril) cp 10 mg Tarka (cp 180 mg verapamil hydrochloride/2 mg trandolapril) Norvasc (amlodipine besilat) cp 10 mg as monotherapy, in 60 patients. We studied the anatomical parameters of the left ventricle (dimensions measured enddiastolically: the thickness of the interventricular septum, the thickness of the posterior wall, the internal diameter of the LV), the LV mass (which has a cutedge value for hypertrophy of the LV-LVH--of 134 g/m2 for men and 110 g/m2 for women) and the functional parameters, systolic as diastolic of the LV. We noticed a statistically significant reduction (p < 0.05) in all the 3 subgroups, of the functional parameters, these ones becoming similar to those in normotensive subjects only after the evening (at bedtime) administration of the studied drugs. The differences between the 3 subgroups for all the studied parameters, also in comparison with the normotensive subjects, have not been statistically significant after vesperal (at bedtime) administration of the studied drugs. It is, thus, possible that by an optimal treatment, chronotherapeutically "tailored", to obtain a normalisation of the anatomical and functional parameters of the LV and a significant improvement of the prognosis of these patients.