Nifedipine Pharmacology

Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals

Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist

Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine

5 • 716 Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nifedipine is a dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker that selectively inhibits L-type calcium channels in vascular smooth muscle, leading to vasodilation and reduced peripheral vascular resistance.

The extended-release formulation of nifedipine provides more stable plasma concentrations and is preferred for chronic management of hypertension and angina.

Common adverse effects include headache, flushing, peripheral edema, and dizziness, all related to its vasodilatory action.

Nifedipine undergoes extensive first-pass metabolism in the liver, primarily via CYP3A4 enzymes, which significantly influences its bioavailability and potential drug interactions.

CYP3A4 inhibitors (e.g., ketoconazole, erythromycin, grapefruit juice) can increase plasma levels of nifedipine, raising the risk of hypotension and adverse effects.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, all, welcome back to the real-life pharmacology podcast.
0:03.3	I'm your host, pharmacistair Christensen.
0:05.3	Thank you so much for listening today.
0:07.5	If you find this episode helpful, if you find this podcast helpful in general,
0:12.1	please do me a huge favor.
0:13.8	Leave a rating review on iTunes or wherever you're listening.
0:16.9	And, of course, share us with friends, colleagues, classmates, and so on and so forth.
0:21.0	So, yeah, help us grow this podcast, help more people learn pharmacology.
0:27.3	All right, the drug of the day today is nipedeepine.
0:31.4	Brand name is Procardia.
0:34.3	Adelat is also another brand name.
0:37.4	And I guess I'll stick on this topic while we're talking about two
0:40.2	different brand names here. Those formulations are different. So Procardia XL versus Adelat CC. So they use
0:50.2	different basically drug delivery systems. I'm not going to go into the weeds, but they are not
0:55.4	considered interchangeable. So if you're a pharmacy technician, a pharmacist dispensing, those
1:01.9	different formulations are not considered interchangeable. So what is this medication used for?
1:10.1	It can be utilized for hypertension, as well as various types of angina.
1:15.5	Rarely it can be used for Rennod's disease or disorder.
1:21.4	And lastly, I'll mention it can be used topically.
1:26.5	So in a compounded product, it can be applied topically for
1:31.4	anal fissures. Not something I'm going to go into great detail here on this podcast. I'm
1:36.4	going to focus more so on the oral systemic use of nipatapine. All right, so drug class. So nifetapine. All right, so drug class.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.