[24-hour blood pressure monitoring. Results with captopril once a day]

In a trial conducted in a physician's office, the adequacy of a single daily dose of the ACE-inhibitor captopril in the management of hypertension was investigated by 24-hour monitoring. Patients of both sexes shown by conventional blood pressure measurements to respond to captopril were included in the study. After a two-week washout period, during which no anti-hypertensive treatment was given, the patients were subjected to 24-hour blood pressure monitoring prior to and following eight weeks of treatment with a daily dose of 50 mg captopril. At the end of the treatment period the mean 24-hour systolic blood pressure decreased from 158 (SD +/- 24) mmHg to 131 (SD +/- 20) mmHg, and the mean 24-hour diastolic blood pressure from 99 (SD +/- 22) mmHg to 84 (SD +/- 14) mmHg. No side effects were observed. These results show that a single daily dose of captopril suffices to reduce blood pressure adequately over 24 hours also under outpatient conditions.