Family · Pharmaceutical analytical standards

Guanethidine

An antihypertensive that acts inside sympathetic nerve endings, emptying them of noradrenaline: for years it was a mainstay for hypertension resistant to other drugs, and it has also been used in intravenous regional blocks for chronic pain. This family brings together other impurities.

Did you know?It gets into nerves 'in disguise': it uses the same transporter as noradrenaline, builds up in the vesicles and takes the neurotransmitter's place. Chemically it is a guanidine with an eight-membered ring.