[ACE inhibitor therapy of hemodialyzed patients].

Authors studied the daily dose of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor captopril and enalapril in patients with hypertension on regular hemodialysis of three hemodialysis units, and the relationship between the daily doses of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and the number of simultaneously used other antihypertensive agents in the same patients. 104 out of 133 hemodialysed patients were treated with antihypertensive agents, 53 patients received angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor. The data of 23 captopril treated patients in 3 dialysis units and data of 17 enalapril treated patients in 2 dialysis units were used as the basis of the study. The difference between the average daily doses of captopril applied at the different hemodialysis units was significant (111, 61 and 26 mg/day). However the difference between the average doses of enalapril was not significant (18 and 12.9 mg/day). The correlation was found to be significant between the dose of captopril and the number of simultaneously used antihypertensive agents: r = 0.46, p < 0.05. The correlation was also significant between the dose of enalapril and the number of combinations of other antihypertensive agents: r = 0.50, p < 0.05. These relations and the analysis of antihypertensive therapy of 4 patients, receiving the largest doses of captopril suggest that larger doses of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors were used in the more resistant hypertensive patients, where more antihypertensive agents were needed to be administered to control the blood pressure.