A multicentre study of a once daily dosage of acebutolol in the treatment of hypertension in general practice.

A three-month open, multicentre trial was carried out in 2132 hypertensive patients under uncontrolled conditions in general practice, to assess the effectiveness and tolerance of acebutolol when given orally as a single morning dose, in the range of 200 to 1200 mg/day. Concomitant antihypertensive therapy was given to 702 patients. Forty-five patients, out of 1893 who were eligible for analysis, showed inadequate blood pressure control and were withdrawn from the study. There were 602 reports of side-effects of adverse reactions attributed to acebutolol in 584 patients, necessitating 120 withdrawals from the trials. The results showed that acebutolol given once daily produces a substantial and progressive reduction in blood pressure over the three months of the trial. The changes from pre-trial values of all haemodynamic assessments measured were statistically significant (p less than 0.001).