Pharmacokinetics of nitrendipine in the elderly

The acute and short-term pharmacokinetics of the calcium antagonist nitrendipine were investigated in 18 elderly subjects (9 healthy volunteers and 9 hypertensive patients). The subjects received nitrendipine 10 mg twice daily for 7 days and the pharmacokinetics profiles for days 1 and 7 were compared for evidence of drug accumulation. In the healthy volunteers, neither the area under the curve (AUC) nor Cmax were significantly affected by nitrendipine treatment, although T1/2 was significantly increased on day 7. In the hypertensive patients, AUC was higher on day 7 than day 1, although this was only marginally significant (p = 0.050); Cmax and T1/2 were unchanged. Nitrendipine significantly reduced both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in the hypertensive patients but had no effect on the blood pressure of the healthy normotensive volunteers. Nitrendipine does not appear to accumulate significantly when given twice daily to elderly volunteers and hypertensive patients.