Assessment of the acute arterial effects of converting enzyme inhibition in essential hypertension: a double-blind, comparative and crossover study

In subjects with essential hypertension, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition increases arterial diameter, compliance and distensibility of peripheral muscular arteries in association with blood pressure reduction. Whether pulse pressure amplification is modified by ACE inhibition and whether changes in compliance and distensibility are due to a drug effect on the arterial wall, to the blood pressure reduction or to a combination of both factors, is largely ignored. In a randomised, double-blind crossover trial, we used the ACE inhibitor quinapril as a marker to evaluate the changes in: pulse pressure amplification (applanation tonometry), carotid compliance and distensibility (echo-tracking technique), and aortic distensibility (measured from pulse wave velocity). Quinapril decreased in the same extent carotid and brachial pulse pressure, thus causing a resetting of pulse pressure amplification toward normal values. Carotid compliance and distensibility as well as aortic distensibility increased significantly. Based on three-way analysis of variance, it was shown that, whereas the changes in carotid stiffness were exclusively due to blood pressure reduction and not to a drug-induced relaxation of the arterial wall, the changes in aortic distensibility were due to the combination of both factors. Thus, using an atraumatic non-invasive procedure, it was possible to show that: (i) ACE inhibition is able to maintain pulse pressure amplification, an important factor contributing to reduce the afterload of the heart; and (ii) ACE inhibition alters the hypertensive arterial wall in a very heterogeneous manner, with a maximal drug effect on muscular large arteries like the abdominal aorta, and not on elastic arteries like the carotid artery and the thoracic aorta.