[A comparative study of the effects of lisinopril and quinapril administered once a day in essential hypertension].

The aim of the study was to compare efficacy and safety of quinapril and lisinopril once-daily administered in patients with mild to moderate hypertension. After a two-week placebo period, 23 patients with sitting diastolic blood pressure between 95 and 110 mmHg were randomly assigned to the therapy with quinapril 20 mg/die or lisinopril 10 mg/die for 4 weeks in a single-blind design. After 4 weeks patients with diastolic blood pressure greater than 90 mmHg were treated with a higher dose (lisinopril 20 mg/die; quinapril 40 mg/die). Therapy with lisinopril normalized 83% of patients, and quinapril 45% of patients. Lisinopril was significantly better than quinapril in reducing blood pressure after 4 and 8 weeks of active treatment. The 24 hours ambulatory blood pressure monitoring showed that quinapril failed to control blood pressure after 12 hours from the administration of the drug.