Antihypertensive activity of a new agent, indapamide: a double-blind study.

In a double-blind trail in 22 patients with mild to moderate essential hypertension, indapamide was compared with chlorathiazide and placebo. Dosage levels were set at 5 mg. indapamide and 500 mg. chlorothiazide daily, for 5 days out of 7, and patients were treated alternately, in random sequence, with each drug for a month over a 3-month period. Blood pressure readings and blood chemistry investigations were carried out before and after each treatment period and a careful history was kept of subjective symptoms and patients' tolerance of therapy. The results show that both active treatments produced drops in systolic and diastolic pressures, but were only statisically significant and different from placebo in the case of indapamide. Indapamide also produce much greater subjective improvement (74%) in patients with functional symptoms compared with chlorothiazide (15%). In an overall assessment, indapamide produced an excellent to good response to treatment in 57% of patients. Comparable responses for chlorotiazide and placebo were 25% and 20% respectivlely. Using patients as their own controls to compare the relative effectiveness of the three periods of treatment, indapamide was shown to be more effective than placebo in 65% of cases and more effective han chlorothiazide in 60%. Although patient tolerance of indapamide was slightly better, both drugs were well accepted and no significant changes from baseline levels were noted in any of the laboratory parameters investigated.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes