Hypotension does not alter the antinociceptive effect of nifedipine

We explored the relationship between antinociceptive and hypotensive effects of nifedipine (NIF) injected intraperitoneally ( ip, 15 mg/kg) and epidurally (epi, 20 microM), as compared to verapamil (VER, 10 mg/kg ip) and nitroglycerin (NTG, 0.1 and 0.15 mg/kg ip). The systolic blood pressure (BP) and tail-flick (TF) latencies were measured simultaneously every 10 min for 2 hours and individual values of both measurements were correlated. The highest antinociceptive as well as hypotensive effects were both measured in the group receiving NIF epi., with the correlation coefficient r2=0.2878. Injected ip., NIF revealed similar antinociceptive effect, whereas the other studied drugs were not effective. As to the degree of hypotensive activity, NIF epi was followed by VER, NTG 0.1, NIF ip. and NTG 0.15. No significant correlation was found between BP and TF latencies in any group receiving the drugs. We concluded that the antinociceptive response, measured by the tail-flick technique, is independent of the hypotensive activity of the studied drugs, including NIF.