Background: Few antihypertensive therapies have been systematically studied in children and dosages for many agents are either extrapolated from adult studies or obtained from small homogenous pediatric populations. It is well established that adult patients of different races show disparate response to angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, however no such studies have been performed in children.
Methods: Two hundred fifty three children ages 6-16 with hypertension or with high normal blood pressure with an associated medical condition requiring antihypertensive therapy were enrolled at 78 clinical sites in the US, Russia, and Israel in a double blind study to evaluate the efficacy of fosinopril compared to placebo.
Results: The racial composition of the cohort included 60.1% white (152/253), 20.6% black (52/253), 13.8% Hispanic (35/253), 2.0% Asian (5/253), 0.4% Native American (1/253), and 3.2% (8/253) children classified as other or of mixed race. After adjusting for baseline blood pressure and body surface area (BSA) there was no significant dose response seen in non-black patients. Non-blacks randomized to the low, medium, and high dosages of fosinopril all had a mean decrease of 12 mm Hg in their sequential systolic BP (SBP). Blacks, however, demonstrated a significant dose response to fosinopril; those who received the low dosage had a 5 mm Hg decrease in SBP, and those who received the high dosage had a mean 13 mm Hg decrease in SBP.
Conclusions: Fosinopril was effective in treating hypertension, but black children required a higher dose per body weight in order to achieve adequate control. This suggests that black children treated with fosinopril for hypertension on average require higher doses to achieve adequate systolic blood pressure control that non-black children.