New Insight into the Vascular Properties of Lacidipine

The concept that calcium ions can have pathogenetic potential when they accumulate excessively into the cytoplasm is particularly true for the cardiovascular system. Hypertension has been described as a suitable model to observe the functional and morphological consequences of calcium overload into the arterial wall (1). In this context, salt-loaded Dahl-S rats and Stroke-Prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR-SP) have been described as useful animal models for the study of hypertension and of associated tissue damage, such as necrotizing vasculopathy (2-3). In fact, their common anomaly is a marked inability to keep the intracellular calcium concentration of vascular smooth muscle at a normal level. The functional consequence is an increased peripheral vascular resistance and the structural consequence is a vascular damage similar to certain forms of arteriosclerosis in humans