Cardiac hyper- and hyporesponsiveness after pindolol withdrawal

Abrupt withdrawal of some beta-adrenergic blockers has resulted in clinical syndromes suggestive of adrenergic hypersensitivity that may be due to an adaptive increase in cardiac beta-receptor responsiveness. it was postulated that the partial agonist activity of pindolol might limit enhanced responsiveness of cardiac beta receptors and prevent or diminish withdrawal manifestations. Pindolol was given to 10 hypertensive patients in doses of 10 mg b.i.d. for at least 4 wk, then abruptly replaced with placebo for 20 days. Cardiac chronotropic responsiveness to isoproterenol was decreased on pindolol and gradually returned to normal over 10 to 20 days with no evidence of enhanced responsiveness. In contrast, both resting and exercise heart rate showed rebound increase in responsiveness between the second to sixth day after pindolol (P less than 0.05). Resting and exercise blood pressures gradually rose to stable values without rebound. Plasma norepinephrine and epinephrine and serum thyroxine and triiodothyronine did not change. These data show that abrupt withdrawal of pindolol after long-term dosing leads to transient cardiac hyperresponsiveness of resting and exercise heart rate at the same time as persistent cardiac hyporesponsiveness to isoproterenol. These opposite effects of pindolol on subsets of cardiac beta-adrenergic chronotropic receptors.