Intravenous labetalol in hypertensive patients given by fast and slow injection

1 Labetalol reduces blood pressure when given by fast or slow intravenous injection. 2 The extent of the reduction in arterial pressure is independent of the rate of injection but the rate of fall of blood pressure can be controlled by varying the rate of injection. There is little effect on heart rate. 3 These observations suggest that labetalol possesses important advantages over other vasodilator hypotensive drugs in current use.