Researchers at the University of Padua in Italy reported in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that they had found the drug nifedipine to be effective in reducing the need for surgery in people with severe aortic regurgitation. As a result, blood flows backward into the ventricle, forcing the heart to pump harder. Eventually, this results in enlargement of the overworked pumping chamber and a reduction of its ability to circulate blood.
Fluids begin building up in the lungs, causing shortness of breath.
The standard treatment for severe aortic regurgitation is surgery to replace the faulty valve. If the Italian study's findings are borne out in clinical research in this country, the deterioration that makes surgery necessary may be slowed considerably. None of the patients receiving nifedipine in the Padua study needed surgery in the first two years of treatment, and only 15 percent needed surgery during the entire six-year period during which they were followed. Nifedipine, prescribed in this country since 1982 as Procardia, is one of a class of drugs called calcium channel blockers that reduce blood pressure by relaxing the walls of arteries. It hasn't been determined yet whether other calcium channel blockers have the same effect on aortic regurgitation.