Renal denervation fails to lower blood pressure in critical test

Patients treated by renal artery denervation were no more likely to see their blood pressure decline than those who received a fake therapy in a major clinical trial, calling into question a therapy used in more than 80 countries to treat high blood pressure that doesn't respond to drugs. The study was considered a key test of the intervention in which nerve connections between the heart and kidney were disrupted in an effort to lower blood pressure as prior trials did not include a proper blinded control group for efficacy comparison. The study, released on Saturday by the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Washington, "brings the renal-denervation train to a grinding halt," said Dr. Franz Messerli and Dr. Sripal Bangalore in a Journal editorial. Because earlier tests of the technique did not involve treating some patients with sham therapy, "placebo effect may well explain all or most of the blood pressure differences" in two key trials, known as SYMPLICITY HTM-1 and HTN-2.



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