The effects of urapidil therapy on hemodynamics and gas exchange in exercising patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pulmonary hypertension.

To examine the hemodynamic changes induced by vasodilator therapy with urapidil during exercise in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and their potential impact on symptom-limited maximal oxygen consumption, we studied 12 clinically stable patients using a randomized, crossover design. Placebo or urapidil (60 mg orally thrice a day) was given during 48 h preceding each incremental maximal exercise testing. Urapidil compared to placebo consistently lowered the pulmonary artery pressure either at rest from 29 +/- 2.5 to 24 +/- 1.5 mm Hg (p less than 0.001) or during exercise from 55 +/- 3 to 46 +/- 2 mm Hg (p less than 0.01). At rest, the systemic arterial pressure was reduced from 97.5 +/- 4 to 88.5 +/- 3 mm Hg (p less than 0.001) with no significant difference in heart rate or cardiac index. During exercise, systemic arterial pressure decreased from 135 +/- 4 to 119 +/- 3 mm Hg (p less than 0.001). As compared to placebo, urapidil tended to increase the cardiac index from 6.1 +/- 0.4 to 6.6 +/- 0.4 L/min.m2 (NS) and to decrease heart rate, from 122 to 116 beats/min (NS); the resulting stroke volume index increased with urapidil from 49 +/- 3 to 57 +/- 4 ml/m2 (p less than 0.01); at rest, urapidil did not induce alteration in gas exchange, while during exercise, C(a-v)O2 decreased from 8.6 +/- 0.5 to 7.7 +/- 0.4 vol% (p less than 0.01), SVO2 increased from 39.5 +/- 2 to 44.5 +/- 1.5% (p less than 0.01), and SaO2 from 82 +/- 2 to 85 +/- 2% (p less than 0.03).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes