Efficacy of urapidil, nifedipine and nitroglycerin for the treatment of postoperative hypertension after tumorectomy

Objective To compare the clinical efficacy and safety of sublingual nifedipine,intravenous urapidil and micropump nitroglycerin in the treatment of APH (acute postoperative hypertension).Methods A retrospective study was conducted to analyze clinical data of 497 patients with AHP undergoing tumor resection from July 2007 through December 2010.Patients received antihypertensive treatment for APH; hypertension occurred within 24 hours after surgery; patients received no long-acting antihypertensive agents within 24 hours.Patients with a previous history of coronary heart disease,arrhythmia,stroke and incomplete clinical data were excluded.All patients were divided into three groups.Nifedipine group,10 mg nifedipine tablet was administered sublingually; urapidil group,12.5 mg of urapidil was diluted in 20 ml normal saline and administered by intravenous injection; nitroglycerin group,25 mg of nitroglycerin was diluted in 40ml normal saline and infused intravenously by a micropump.The x2 test was employed to compare the efficacy and safety among different treatment.Results Treatment with sublingual nifedipine caused a reduction of the systolic blood pressure by 5.8％,and diastolic blood pressure by 4.7％.Treatment with intravenous urapidil caused a reduction of the systolic blood pressure by 11.1％,and diastolic blood pressure by 8.4％.Treatment with micropump nitroglycerin caused a reduction of the systolic blood pressure by 13.1％,and diastolic blood pressure by 10.2％.There is not different between intravenous urapidil and micropump nitroglycerin (63.4％ vs 57.8％,P =0.506).Intravenous urapidil and micropump nitroglycerin were associated with a significantly higher rate of blood pressure control than sublingual nifedipine (63.4％ vs 33.3％,P =0.000; 57.8％ vs 33.3％,P =0.001).The frequency of cardio-cerebrovascular events in intravenous urapidil group was similar to that in sublingual nifedipine group (6.9％ vs 4.7％,P =0.345),but it was significantly higher in micropump nitroglycerin group compared with intravenous urapidil group and sublingual nifedipine group.(24.4％ vs 6.9％,P =0.001 ; 24.4％ vs 4.7％,P =0.000).Conclusions Considering therapeutic effect and safety,we concluded that intravenous administration of urapidil was more suitable for the treatment of APH compared with sublingual nifedipine and micropump nitroglycerin. Key words: Urapidil ;  Nifedipine ;  Nitroglycerin ;  Acute postoperative hypertension;  Carcinoma; Treatment effects ;  Safety;  Retrospectively analysis