A comparative study of ketanserin and metoprolol in essential hypertension.

The efficacy and tolerability of ketanserin was compared with metoprolol in a double-blind parallel group study. After a 4-week placebo run-in on no treatment patients with a diastolic blood pressure (BP) of 95 mmHg or more received ketanserin 40 mg (n = 16) or metoprolol 100 mg (n = 17) twice daily. Blood pressure was measured in duplicate using a Hawksley random zero sphygmomanometer. Both blood pressure and heart rate were recorded after 5 min supine and 1 min standing. Patients visited after 2, 4, 8 and 12 weeks of treatment. Systolic, diastolic and mean arterial BPs, both supine and standing, were significantly reduced from week 2 by both treatments (P less than 0.05, Student's t-test). The mean (+/- s.e.m.) changes in supine BP at 3 months compared with baseline were -15.7 (3.6) mmHg systolic and -13.9 (2.7) mmHg diastolic in the ketanserin group and -26.6 (7.9) mmHg systolic and -15.2 (2.7) mmHg diastolic in the metoprolol group. There was a tendency for the fall in systolic BP to be greater in the metoprolol group, but this did not reach statistical significance except for the standing systolic BP at 1 month. Metoprolol caused a significant fall in heart rate compared with baseline values throughout the study, and the metoprolol group was significantly different from the ketanserin group at 2 months for the supine heart rate and at all time points for standing heart rate.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)