Review of cardiovascular findings in humans treated with minoxidil

Minoxidil is an antihypertensive vasodilator with no known capability of inducing human cardiovascular pathology; however, the compound does cause a late, canine-specific lesion of the right atrium and acute right atrial and ventricular papillary muscle changes. In all the autopsy cases of minoxidil-treated humans to date, 9 cases were reported with significant right atrial or other cardiac pathology and were carefully reviewed for similarity to either the early or late canine lesion. Three new cases (G, H, and I) were added in this update to 6 cases already described. None of the 3 cases newly analyzed in this paper, as well as the previously reported 6 cases, had gross or histologic constellations which could be diagnosed as associated with minoxidil treatment. Further, the examination of autopsy cases of minoxidil-treated hypertensive right atrial histology findings appear no different than those found in the baseline non-minoxidil treated hypertensive and non-hypertensive cases.