Renal Function in Hypertensive Patients Receiving Cilnidipine and L-Type Calcium Channel Blockers: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled and Retrospective Studies

Nearly 65%-95% of chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients have hypertension. Calcium-channel blockers are the first-line drugs for the treatment of hypertension, including hypertension with diabetes. This study aims to estimate the effect of an L-type calcium channel blocker (CCB), cilnidipine, on the renal function of hypertensive patients. Randomized control trials were selected from PubMed, Embase, Google Scholar, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Science Direct, Elton B. Stephens Company (EBSCO), Springer, Ovid, Cochrane Library, Medline, VIP, and Wanfang databases (from the date of databases' establishment till January 2022). Data were independently evaluated following the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. The changes in serum creatinine (SCr), urinary protein excretion (UPE), urinary protein/creatinine ratio (UPCR), and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) before and after treatment, in percentages, were extracted for the meta-analysis. The mean difference (MD) and a CI of 95% were determined using RevMan 5.3 software. A total of 11 studies were analyzed. The standardized mean difference (SMD) between cilnidipine and L-type CCBs was -0.022, suggesting a reduced SCr with cilnidipine. For UPCR, the SMD value is 1.28. Although cilnidipine reduced UPCR in all four studies, the L-type CCBs reported a slight increase in UPCR. For eGFR, the SMD value was found to be 0.693. Cilnidipine had a more favorable effect on eGFR when compared to the L-type CCBs. While cilnidipine had similar effects on SCr to that of L-type CCBs, cilnidipine showed greater improvement in UPCR, UPE, and eGFR values.