[Treatment of arterial hypertension with sotalol, a beta-blocker (author's transl)]

Plasma concentrations and the effect of sotalol, a beta blocker, on arterial blood pressure and other haemodynamic variables (determined by echocardiography) were measured in 15 patients with arterial hypertension of different severity, after acute administration and during long-term treatment for 3 to 16 months. Sotalol absorption was relatively constant, the correlation coefficient between plasma concentrations and administered dose being r=0.67. The biological half-life was about eight hours, The effects of the drug on blood pressure, heart rate and other haemodynamic variables were small after acute administration. But in ten patients blood pressure returned to normal during chronic treatment with sotalol alone, while in five others it was necessary to combine sotalol with a diuretic and dihydralazine. These results show that sotalol is suitable for long-term treatment of arterial hypertension.