Abstract
BACKGROUND: Perindopril is an ACE inhibitor that aids in both blood pressure regulation and homocysteine reduction. OBJECTIVES: Our study aimed to evaluate the results of controlling blood pressure and blood homocysteine levels by perindopril in patients with primary hypertension. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive study with a longitudinal follow-up was conducted on 105 primary hypertensive patients treated with perindopril. RESULTS: The results of our study showed that after 6 weeks of treatment with perindopril, the proportion of patients with the target blood pressure (BP) level accounted for 70.5%, the rate of grade 1 hypertension decreased from 61.0% to 25.7%, grade 2 blood pressure decreased from 17.1% to 3.8%, and there was no case of grade 3 hypertension. At the same time, we also found that the rate of BP control in the group of patients who controlled Hcy below a threshold of 15 μmol/L was significantly higher than in the other group (p < 0.05). Concerning the efficacy of decreasing homocysteine in blood, we discovered that after 6 weeks of treatment with perindopril, the proportion of patients with elevated homocysteine reduced considerably from 74.3% to 40% (p < 0.05). In addition, the homocysteine concentration was 4.33 mol/L lower after treatment than before treatment (95% CI: 3.69-4.97) (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Perindopril helps control blood pressure and reduces blood homocysteine levels in patients with primary hypertension.