The antihypertensive agent cicletanine reverses vascular hyperreactivity to noradrenaline and cardiac hypertrophy in DOCA-salt rats.

Cicletanine, when given p.o. either acutely or subchronically, was found to produce a clear-cut antihypertensive effect in the deoxycorticosterone salt experimental rat model. This compound was able to reverse high blood pressure, even at doses deprived of diuretic effect. Subchronic treatment (30 mg/kg, p.o.; 14 days) with cicletanine reduced the enhanced contractile response to noradrenaline in deoxycorticosterone salt rat aortic strips and reversed the cardiac hypertrophy in these animals. The antihypertensive effect after long-term treatment with cicletanine in deoxycorticosterone salt rats appears to be related to an antagonism of the elevated sympathetic drive to the vascular smooth muscle.