Effect of Perindopril/Indapamide on Cerebral Blood Flow in Middle-Aged, Treatment-Naive Patients with Hypertension

Introduction The relationship between blood pressure (BP) and cerebral blood flow (CBF) is not fully understood. This study evaluated the impact of a perindopril arginine/indapamide (Pa/I) single-pill combination (SPC) on CBF in middle-aged patients. Methods A total of 22 treatment-naive patients with essential hypertension and at least one hypertension-mediated organ damage and 41 healthy controls were enrolled. At baseline, all participants underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); patients with hypertension underwent an additional MRI at end of follow-up. Arterial spin labeling (ASL) was used to calculate CBF in the frontal lobe cortical plate. Patients with hypertension received once-daily Pa/I 5 mg/1.25 mg SPC, which could be increased to Pa/I 10 mg/2.5 mg at 2 weeks if necessary. Patients with hypertension underwent 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) at baseline and end of follow-up. Results Mean baseline BP values were 146.2/93.1 and 119.1/76.1 mmHg in the hypertension and control groups, respectively. Patients with hypertension had significantly (p < 0.001) lower CBF in the cortical plate of both left (36.2 +/- 8.3 vs. 45.3 +/- 3.5 ml/100 g/min) and right (37.9 +/- 7.9 vs. 45.8 +/- 3.2 ml/100 g/min) frontal lobes compared to normotensive controls. At the end of follow-up, there was a statistically significant (p < 0.001) increase in CBF in the cortical plate of both left (from 36.2 +/- 8.3 to 47.5 +/- 9.8 ml/100 g/min) and right frontal lobes (from 37.9 +/- 7.9 to 47.4 +/- 10.1 ml/100 g/min) compared to baseline. No significant difference was found between end of follow-up CBF levels in frontal lobes of patients with hypertension and those of healthy controls at baseline. Office BP decreased by 24.2/15.5 mmHg and 24-h ABPM from 145.5/95.3 to 120.8/79.3 mmHg. Conclusion In middle-aged, treatment-naive patients with hypertension, Pa/I SPC was associated with increased CBF in the cortical plate of the frontal lobes, which achieved levels of normotensive controls. The increase in CBF had no clear association with observed BP changes. Registration number ISRCTN67799751.