Hemodynamic and clinical response to enalapril, a long-acting converting-enzyme inhibitor, in patients with congestive heart failure.

Enalapril, a new oral angiotensin converting-enzyme inhibitor, was administered to nine patients with severe congestive heart failure. Short-term hemodynamic response was noted within 2 hr and persisted for up to 24 hr. At peak effect mean arterial pressure fell from 83.4 +/- 10(SD) to 72.1 +/- 16.2 mm Hg (p less than .01), right atrial pressure from 13.6 +/- 6.0 to 10.4 +/- 7.5 mm Hg (p less than .01), pulmonary arterial pressure from 38.9 +/- 4.8 to 31.9 +/- 4.8 mm Hg (p less than .01), pulmonary capillary wedge pressure from 28.2 +/- 3.5 to 22.1 +/- 5.1 mm Hg (p less than .01), and total pulmonary resistance from 875 +/- 304 to 697 +/- 291 dynes-sec-cm-5 (p less than .05). Cardiac index was not changed, but there was a significant redistribution of regional blood flow with an increase of renal blood flow after enalapril. Plasma renin activity rose significantly from 6.2 to 28.6 ng/ml/hr, whereas plasma norepinephrine did not change after enalapril. Seven patients were treated with enalapril for 4 weeks. Five patients reported symptomatic improvement. Five of six patients tested had an increase in both exercise time (NS) and maximum oxygen consumption (NS). Repeat hemodynamic evaluation in six patients after long-term enalapril therapy showed a persistent effect with significant reductions in right atrial pressure from 13.8 +/- 7.2 to 7.1 +/- 4.7 mm Hg and in mean arterial pressure from 82.5 +/- 10.4 to 76.6 +/- 5.3 mm Hg and a significant increase in cardiac index from 2.1 +/- 0.5 to 2.5 +/- 0.5 l/min/m2 (all p less than .05).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)