Oral Nifedipine vs Oral Clonidine in the Treatment of Urgent Hypertension

Clinical presentation and management of patients with uncontrolled, severe hypertension: results from a public teaching hospital

“…Accordingly, in the absence of detailed management guidelines and algorithms supported by data from the appropriate clinical trials, practitioners employ a number of diverse protocols, with quite varied results. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] …”

Advances in pharmacotherapy: Treatment of hypertensive crisis

“…Most studies report an average response rate of approximately 80% relative to achieving a desired BP (83)(84)(85). Several recent studies have compared oral clonidine to oral nifedipine for the treatment of hypertensive crises (82, 85).…”

“…Jaker rt al. (85) concluded that clonidine may be used as first-line therapy for hypertensive crises even though the onset of action was delayed compared with that of rufedipine. Sedation due to clonidine appeared to be the only significant side-effect reported in this study.…”

“…Nifedipine is the most extensively studied calcium channel blocker for the treatment of hypertensive crises (83,85,(87)(88)(89)(90)(91)(92)(93). This drug is manufactured as a liquid-filled gelatin capsule for oral administration.…”

“…and (3) sublingually using the intact capsule of after the capsule has been punctured (91,92). All four methods of administration have been shown to be effective at reducing BP in patients with hypertensive crises (83,85,92). When each of these routes of administration were studied by direct crossover comparison, the sublingual route produced lower and delayed peak concentrations when compared with the oral route, and the bite and swallow method (94).…”