The participants of the study were adults with moderate to severe hypertension despite taking three or more antihypertensive drugs, among them 69 were treated with renal denervation and 67 had the sham procedure.
Results of the study reveal that renal denervation was more effective than a sham procedure in lowering blood pressure.
“For patients with drug-resistant hypertension, a drop in blood pressure of 8 points–if maintained over longer-term follow-up–is almost certainly going to help reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and other adverse cardiac events,” says Ajay Kirtane, MD, professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, an interventional cardiologist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Centre, and co-principal investigator of the trial.
Renal denervation is a minimally invasive procedure using ultrasound to disrupt nerves in renal arteries to reduce blood pressure as kidneys act as central signalling centre for other systems in the body.
Still the procedure is in clinical trial stage so more time is required to determine if this therapy may be effective for other groups of patients in controlling blood pressure.
Source: Eurekalert
