Renal denervation: new treatment for refractory hypertension?].

J F Argacha, P Van de Borne

Unité de Cardiologie, Hôpital Erasme, Bruxelles. jean.francois.argacha@erasme.ulb.ac.be

Revue médicale de Bruxelles 2012 Sep

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Sympathetic renal hyperactivity is involved hypertension and in its progression towards organ damages. Using femoral access, a dedicated ablation catheter can be inserted into the renal vessels to deliver high frequency energy in the arterial wall. This therapy leads to a focal heating, which ablates the renal nerve fibers running in the adventitia. First clinical results (Simplicity HTN 1 and HTN 2 trials) have demonstrated a significant and sustained decrease in office blood pressure. The response rate to this therapy was about 85 to 90%. This procedure did not cause serious adverse event and seems to have also positive impact on glucose metabolism and exercise capacity. Based on these first results, renal denervation appears as a new interesting therapy, which requires further studies to better define its place in the antihypertensive therapeutic arsenal. Actually, it should not be considered as an alternative to pharmacological therapy and renal denervation should be only proposed to patients with resistant hypertension. Prior to renal denervation, an upstream work has to be done to ensure an adequate patient selection. The mandatory point is to ensure that patient scheduled for this therapy respond to the definition of arterial resistant hypertension. Because of the narrowed limit between the very common situation of "uncontrolled" hypertension and the "true resistant" group, we proposed a 3 steps algorithm that can help for patient selection.