Effect of terazosin on serum lipids.

The effect of terazosin administration on serum lipid profiles was assessed in four multicenter, randomized, controlled, double-blind studies in which patients were treated for mild to moderate hypertension. Three studies were placebo-controlled, fixed-dose studies in which the dose of terazosin was gradually increased to a fixed level of 5, 10, or 20 mg once daily, and remained fixed for four weeks. The remaining study was a placebo-controlled, dose-titration study designed to compare the antihypertensive effects of once-daily administration of terazosin with those of twice-daily administration of prazosin. In this study, the dosage of medication was titrated until a satisfactory decrease in supine diastolic blood pressure was obtained, or until the maximum daily dosage (20 mg) was reached. When data from the three fixed-dose studies were pooled, analysis of fasting blood samples revealed that mean serum cholesterol and the low-density lipoprotein plus very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol fraction were significantly (p less than or equal to 0.05) decreased during terazosin monotherapy (-5.4 mg/dl and -6.1 mg/dl, respectively) in comparison with placebo (-0.2 mg/dl and -1.0 mg/dl, respectively). Terazosin therapy was also associated with a significant within-group increase in the cholesterol ratio. In the dose-titration, comparative study, both terazosin- and prazosin-treated patients experienced significant within-group increases in the cholesterol ratio (1.8 and 2.3, respectively). Although changes in lipid parameters in the dose-titration comparative study were not significantly different between the three treatment groups, all changes in the tetrazosin and prazosin groups were in a beneficial direction, and were greater in magnitude than those observed in the placebo group. Observations from the four studies suggest that terazosin may exert a positive effect on the lipid profile.