Efficacy of antihypertensive treatment with indapamide in patients with noninsulin-dependent diabetes and persistent microalbuminuria.

In patients with insulin-dependent diabetes, antihypertensive treatment has a beneficial effect on the rate of progression toward uremia of overt diabetic nephropathy (albumin excretion rate [AER] greater than 300 mg/24 hour). The influence of hypertension on the progression of "incipient" nephropathy (AER ranging between 30 and 300 mg/24 hours) is not well defined, particularly in patients with noninsulin-dependent diabetes. In this study, 21 patients with noninsulin-dependent diabetes and hypertension (11 with normoalbuminuria and 10 with microalbuminuria), who were comparable for age, duration of diabetes and hypertension, were treated with indapamide, 2.5 mg once daily, and followed up for 24 months. Blood pressure, glomerular filtration rate (GFR), albumin excretion rate and subclass 4 of urinary immunoglobulin G (IgG4) were indicated. In normoalbuminuric patients, blood pressure was significantly reduced, whereas AER, IgG4 and GFR did not show any variation throughout the study. In microalbuminuric patients, blood pressure, AER and IgG4 were significantly reduced, and GFR remained unchanged. In patients with noninsulin-dependent diabetes, antihypertensive treatment, which is begun during incipient diabetic nephropathy, may have a beneficial effect on the progression of the disease, although a long-term follow-up study is needed to confirm this.