GRADED-EXERCISE AS A CRITERION IN EVALUATION OF ANTIHYPERTENSIVE TREATMENT EFFICACY

J. W. Franz graded exercise test (GET) was employed to examine healthy subjects, untreated patients with stage I and II essential hypertension and hypertensive subjects treated with hydrochlorthiazide, alpha-methyldopa, prazosine, dilthiazem resultant in normal resting values of blood pressure. Hydrochlorthiazide did not protect the patients from a pathological hypertensive response to GET, whereas alpha-methyldopa and prazosine furnish a physiological hypertensive response in much less number of patients and dilthiazem made possible normal response in the majority of treated patients. GET is suggested for assessing effectiveness of hypertension treatment and individual choice of antihypertensive drugs.