THE CLINICAL EFFICACY OF MOXONIDINE IN HYPERTENSION

Moxonidine has been evaluated in placebo-controlled trials in patients with essential hypertension, in comparative trials versus established antihypertensive agents, and in long-term trials. Experience in these studies suggests that moxonidine represents a useful addition to the therapeutic armamentarium for treatment of hypertension, its antihyper tensive efficacy being similar to representatives of all the classes o f antihypertensives in current mainstream use. The recommended startin g dose of moxonidine is 0.2 mg od, which may be increased to 0.4 mg od ; it may be combined with a thiazide diuretic. Moxonidine is well tole rated and the incidence of reported adverse effects declines with cont inued use. Large, long-term studies indicate that the most frequent ad verse effect is dry mouth, which has an incidence of approximately 10% after 1 month, declining to less than 4% after 1 year. Orthostatic hy potension has not been described in randomized trials or Postmarketing surveillance, suggesting that moxonidine does not impair the function ing of physiological nervous reflexes. Metabolic indices such as plasm a lipid profiles and blood glucose are not adversely affected by moxon idine and no clinically relevant changes in standard laboratory parame ters have been recorded.