Renal Denervation in a Hypertensive Patient With End-Stage Renal Disease and Small Arteries: A Direction for Future Research

Sympathetic overactivity plays a crucial pathogenetic role in the maintenance and aggravation of arterial hypertension in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Renal denervation has been shown to be effective and safe in reducing blood pressure (BP) in patients with treatment-resistant hypertension; however, there are only case reports in hypertensive patients with ESRD and data are lacking about possibility of renal denervation in small renal arteries. A woman with uncontrolled treatment-resistant hypertension on chronic hemodialysis underwent bilateral native kidney, catheter-based renal denervation. Both native renal arteries were <4 mm. After 6 months without any change of antihypertensive medication or hemodialysis parameters, the authors observed a remarkable BP reduction of 38/30 mm Hg (from baseline 172/100 mm Hg to 134/70 mm Hg) as evaluated by 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring. The authors report that renal denervation seems to be effective in controlling hypertension in patients with ESRD, even in cases of small renal arteries. J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). 2012;14:799801. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.