Assessment of left ventricular function after sublingual administration of nifedipine in patients with moderate to severe hypertension.

To evaluate the left ventricular functional changes induced by acute decreases in blood pressure in 15 patients with systemic hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy, this study used Doppler and M-mode echocardiographic derived left ventricular indices. After 30 minutes of administration of sublingual nifedipine, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased and heart rates increased. The left ventricular end-systolic dimension decreased but not the end-diastolic dimension, which suggests that sublingual nifedipine may decrease only afterload, not preload. Total peripheral resistance decreased from 2770 to 1960 dyne.sec.cm-5. The M-mode-derived peak rate of dimension changes improved both the systolic and diastolic phase, and Doppler-derived indices of atrial contribution to ventricular filling decreased. Because both the systolic and diastolic phase indices of LV function are sensitive to variations in both preload and afterload, the improvement of myocardial contractility per se cannot necessarily be attributed to the direct effect of the drug to myocardium. Though favorable effects on the myocardial oxygen supply-demand ratio or increased adrenergic tone stimulated by the decline in systemic arterial pressures may contribute to the augmentation of LV systolic and diastolic function observed after nifedipine in the present study, the apparent augmentation of LV function appears to be attributable primarily to afterload reduction.