Elderly, conscious patients have an accentuated hypotensive response to nitroglycerin

There is no adequate explanation for the highly variable response of systemic blood pressure to nitroglycerin (glyceryl trinitrate [GTN]). Aging produces cardiovascular changes that should alter the effects of GTN, but elderly patients usually have been excluded from studies of GTN. Accordingly, the authors compared the effects of GTN on systemic blood pressure in elderly and younger patients. Fifty-three patients, aged 49-87 (with 30 patients older than 70), were studied. Before elective vascular surgery, 14 patients received an infusion of placebo; 26, a constant infusion of GTN; and 13, a stepwise increasing infusion of GTN. After a standardized anesthetic induction and the start of surgery, the identical infusion protocols were repeated in each group. Data on GTN infusion rate, arterial blood pressure, and GTN concentrations versus time, age, and other potentially influencing variables were pooled for analysis. Before anesthesia and surgery, GTN more commonly caused excessive hypotension in patients older than 70 yr than in younger patients, but none of the patients had complications. A repeated-measures model analysis indicated that age significantly influenced the effects of GTN on blood pressure. That is, patients who are in their 70s who receive 0.5 micrograms.kg-1.min-1 of GTN are predicted to experience a twofold greater decrease in systolic arterial pressure (approximately 33 mmHg) than patients in their 50s. However, no apparent effect of age on intraoperative GTN responsiveness was discernible nor was a predictable relationship found between the preoperative and intraoperative responsiveness or between arterial concentrations of GTN and blood pressure or age. Therefore, the authors conclude that, in the absence of the effects of anesthesia and surgery, elderly patients have a more pronounced blood pressure response to GTN than younger patients. Furthermore, the authors conclude that preoperative blood pressure responsiveness to GTN is not a reliable predictor of intraoperative responsiveness.