[On the clinical evaluation of therapy with nifedipine in association with various anithypertensive drugs (author's transl)].

During a double-blind cross-over study of 3 weeks duration 42 hypertensive outpatients with prevailingly mild angina pectoris received 30 mg daily of 4-(2'-nitrophenyl)-2,6-dimethyl-1,4-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarbonic acid dimethylester (nifedipine, Bay a 1040, Adalat) daily or placebo, respectively. 30 patients (mean age: 47 +/- 10 years, mean weight: 79 +/- 13 kg, mean height: 169 +/- 7 cm) completed the whole study period. The mean recumbent blood pressure was 158 +/- 26 mmHg syst. and 101 +/- 16 mmHg diast., the heart rate averaged 74 +/- 12 beats/min. Under these criteria the two cross-over groups of 14 and 16 patients are well comparable. 6 patients dropped out because of side effects under nifedipind (compared to 2 patients under placebo). With one exception mean blood pressures were reduced by less than 10 mmHg during the application of nifedipine as compared to controls, this being true for systolic and diastolic pressures as well as for different positions during measurements. This result is also independent of the corresponding pre-values measured. The differences between the treatment phases did not reach statistical significance. Clinically a blood pressure reduction of this degree is rarely of consequence. But 3 patients reported hypotensive symptoms about 30 min after nifedipine. Nifedipine did not seem to influence the heart rate.