The effects of oxprenolol on ambulatory intra-arterial blood pressure in essential hypertension.

Continuous intra-arterial blood pressure recording using the "Oxford" technique has been used to study the antihypertensive effects of oxprenolol taken three times daily in fully ambulatory patients with essential hypertension, outside hospital. During the first 24 h of treatment there was a reduction in daytime heart rate and a small reduction in daytime blood pressure. After 10 weeks treatment there was a more substantial fall in daytime blood pressure from the hour of waking, but no effect on sleeping nighttime blood pressure or heart rate. Twenty-four hour variation, as assessed by the amplitude of a fitted regression curve, showed a reduction in heart rate but not blood pressure variation. In 4 patients restudied after 11 weeks treatment with oxprenolol (tid) and cyclopenthiazide at 9 a.m. there was some evidence of an antihypertensive effect occurring during both the daytime and nighttime.