Propranolol in the Treatment of Hypertension

Abstract

Introduction:

The quest for an effective hypotensive agent has been a continuous process ever since the control of hypertension posed a problem in the field of clinical medicine. The more we are becoming aware and naturally scared of the crippling cardiovascular and cereberovascular atherosclerotic changes with their consequent catastrophic outcomes, the more we are searching for hypotensive agents in order atleast postpone, if not completely eliminate, such unpleasant situations. It is this property of beta-blockers which we plan to explore in ‘Inderal’ by conducting a trial to assess objectively its hypotensive efficacy stretched over a span of 32 weeks.

Material and Methods:
35 patients entered the trial and 3 of them had to be dropped for various reasons, thereby leaving behind 32 patients for an extensive trial of the drug. The following were the criteria for selection of the patients into the trial:-

Discussion:
Patients vary considerably in their dosage requirements of ‘Inderal’ so that trials using small dosages or fixed dosage schemes would show extremely unsatisfactory results; secondly the onset of hypertensive effect varics considerably from patient to patient, therefore, trials stretched over a couple of weeks are unlikely to prom ject fruituful results as regards the assessment of the efficacy of’ Inderal’ in hypertension.

Results:

In this trial stretched over a span of 32 weeks (average 38.6 weeks), there were 32 patients who showed variable response to the anti-hypertensive effect of Propranolol (Inderal-ICI).We are extremely grateful to Messers I.C.I. (Pakistan) Limited, for a generous supply of inderal and all the secretarial and financial support to conduct the trial.