Change in symptoms of hypertensive patients after referral to hospital clinic.

At their first visit to a hospital clinic 178 patients referred with a diagnosis of hypertension were given a self-administered questionnaire. They received a similar questionnaire 12 months later. Of the 178 patients 99 were not initially on treatment. Similarly 78 normotensive subjects were drawn randomly from the local population and sent a second questionnaire 10 months later. The symptoms at the first visit of the normotensive controls, the untreated hypertensive patients, and 477 patients on long-term treatment in the hypertension clinic were compared. Treated and untreated hypertensive patients complained more of nocturia and also of unsteadiness either on standing or in the morning. Treated hypertensives complained more of sleepiness, dry mouth, diarrhoea, and, in men, impotence and failure of ejaculation. Similarly, untreated hypertensives complained of excessive depression, blurred vision, and waking headache. Fifty-five of the normotensive subjects and 110 of the newly referred hypertensive patients responded to the second questionnaire. The proportions losing and gaining symptoms were calculated together with the proportions always complaining and never complaining of a symptom. Hypertensive patients tended to lose the complaints of unsteadiness and headache but to gain the symptoms of vivid dreams, a slow walking pace, and diarrhoea. The net improvement for a symptom was defined as the excess of patients who lost a symptom over those who gained the symptom, expressed as a percentage. Over the follow-up period the control subjects had a net improvement averaged over 14 symptoms of +2-4 per cent. A similar result was obtained for the hypertensive patients of +2-0 per cent, the symptoms lost being balanced by those gained. The changes in symptoms with time were related to the changes in blood pressure and it is suggested that only headache, 'unsteadiness, lightheadedness, or faintness' and nocturia can actually result from raised blood pressure and then only in a proportion of patients complaining of these symptoms.     

Destructive arthritis due to silicone: a foreign-body reaction

The authors report 3 cases of erosive arthritis resulting from a foreign-body reaction to a silicone implant in the wrist. No patient had a history of inflammatory arthritis. Radiographic changes included well-defined lytic lesions with thin, sclerotic margins, normal mineralization, and loss of volume of the implant. Pathologically, a destructive foreign-body reaction was seen, with intra- and extracellular silicone debris.     

The effects of verapamil and propranolol on quality of life in hypertension

Quality of life was evaluated in a four-month randomised double-blind trial of verapamil compared with propranolol in the treatment of hypertension in 94 patients in the UK. Scores on a health status index, measuring activity and perceived health, increased in verapamil patients compared to a decrease in propranolol patients (P = 0.01). Measures of psychiatric morbidity also tended to improve with verapamil and deteriorate with propranolol. Propranolol patients reported more symptoms overall compared with verapamil (P less than 0.05). The prevalence of certain symptoms--headaches, weak limbs and slower walking pace, increased significantly with propranolol compared with verapamil, but constipation was more common in verapamil patients (P less than 0.05). After four months, diastolic blood pressure averaged 86.2 mmHg with verapamil and 90.3 mmHg with propranolol (P = 0.02). However, this difference in final blood pressure did not explain the more favourable quality of life scores with verapamil, and the data suggest that health-related well-being is higher with this drug.