Emergency Room Treatment of Hypertensive Crises

AIM The aim of the study was to evaluate efficiency of hypertensive urgency treatment using inhibitors of α1-adrenergic receptors and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors-ACE inhibitors in the Emergency Room of Outpatient Hospital and Polyclinic "dr Mustafa Šehovic" Tuzla in relation to age, duration and severity of hypertension. METHODS The study was conducted from June 2011 to May 2012 and included 120 patients of both sexes diagnosed with arterial hypertension, aged 40 to 80 with verified hypertensive urgency. The patients were divided into two groups: the control group treated with sublingual captopril and the experimental group treated intravenously with urapidil. RESULTS The results show that the largest number of patients belonged to age group from 60 to 69 years (34,16%), and the average age was 58 (11). The largest number of patients (38,0%) had verified hypertension for 11 to 20 years. The average systolic/diastolic artery blood pressure at reception was 213 (19) / 130 (4) mmHg. The average systolic/diastolic artery blood pressure after the first dose of 12,5 mg captopril in the control group was 177,42 (10,91) / 112,33 (3,50) mmHg, while after the first dose of 12,5 mg urapidil it was 179,25 (16,62) / 110,33 (8,78) mmHg. The average systolic/diastolic artery blood pressure after the second dose of 12,5 mg of captopril in the control group was 152,00 (6,32) / 95,50 (3,76) mmHg, while after the second dose of 12,5 mg of urapidil it was 152,55 (7,17) / 95,29 (5,04) mmHg. CONCLUSION Urapidil is more efficient in hypertensive urgency treatment, since the decrease of middle artery pressure (MAP) in the group treated with urapidil was statistically significant (p<0,001). No statistical significance was found between the efficiency of urapidil and the patient's age, while captopril was more efficient in older patients (p=0,02). Also, no statistically significant difference was found between the efficiency of captopril and urapidil in relation to duration of hypertension.