Nerve destruction treats blood pressure

Mon April 6th, 2009

Doctors have tested a new surgical treatment for patients with uncontrollably high blood pressure, it has been announced.

An Australian medical team has tested the treatment on some 50 patients - and say the results are encouraging.

The process involves destroying nerves in the kidney responsible for pushing up blood pressure levels.

According to the researchers, the trial suggests the treatment is safe, does not have side-effects and reduces blood pressure substantially.

The treatment, developed at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, involves using a catheter to deliver a device that emits radio energy frequency to destroy the nerves. Only a local anaesthetic is used.

The findings were reported to a conference of the American College of Cardiology last week.

Researcher Professor Henry Krum said: "Patients who underwent the procedure had a significant reduction in their blood pressure levels and we were able therefore to reduce their risk of severe stroke or heart attack."

He said between five and 20 per cent of patients with high blood pressure do not respond to drugs and might benefit from the treatment.

He added: "We showed an excellent safety profile of this brief, catheter-based therapy. No long-term adverse events resulted from the procedure.

"Therapeutic renal denervation led to a large and persistant decrease in blood pressure, which was achieved in patients resistant to multiple existing hypertensive drug types. Moreover, reduction of blood pressure was evident as early as one month, was further reduced at three months, and persisted through subsequent assessments."

Tags: Australia | Internal Medicine | Heart Health

Printer friendly page