Atenolol versus pindolol: Side-effects in hypertension

Summary

This randomized crossover out-patient study was designed to compare the antihypertensive effects of atenolol and pindolol. After a wash-out period of two weeks in pretreated cases, 107 patients with essential hypertension were given either atenolol 100 mg once-daily or pindolol 20 mg slow release (SR) once-daily. Both atenolol and pindolol lowered blood pressure over the 24 week period. The diastolic blood pressure reduction was significantly greater (p<0.01) with atenolol than with pindolol. Before β-blocker therapy, many patients had already experienced side-effects such as fatigue, sleep disturbances and dreams. This probably relates to the high sensitivity of the analogue scale used to assess side-effects, and to the high incidence of such symptoms in untreated patients. As the study progressed there was a reduction in the frequency of fatigue (p<0.03) and dreams (p<0.05) in both groups, whereas sleep disturbances significantly increased under pindolol (p<0.05) but decreased under atenolol (p<0.05). The only important side-effect difference between the two β-blockers was the higher incidence of sleep disturbances with pindolol which may be due to the higher lipophilicity of this β-blocker.