Analysis of advancing age on the response to nicardipine among 467 adult hypertensive patients.

The antihypertensive response to nicardipine was analyzed in 467 hypertensive patients who had participated in four similarly designed double-blind clinical studies in which the effectiveness of nicardipine was evaluated. This population was divided into five age groups. The difference in response rates between the youngest (less than or equal to 39 years) and oldest group (greater than or equal to 70 years) of patients was less than 5%. After 12 weeks of treatment with nicardipine, the rate of response for each decade ranged from 65% to 77%. The per cent decrease in blood pressure was not age dependent, but did correlate with the pretreatment systolic and diastolic blood pressure (P less than 0.001). No age-related trend in side effects was observed. The incidence of side effects ranged between 0% among the oldest patients to 17.3% in patients 50-59 years of age. No adverse metabolic effects were found in any age groups. These results indicate that nicardipine, a calcium entry-blocker, is effective and useful in adult hypertensive patients of all ages.