Does treatment and control of blood pressure improve cardiovascular outcomes in patients with resistant hypertension?
This review highlights that while observational data suggest blood pressure control in resistant hypertension offers substantial cardiovascular benefits, large randomized trials are still needed to confirm these findings and evaluate new interventional therapies.
Resistant hypertension is commonly found in everyday clinical practice. However, the risks of resistant hypertension, as well as the benefits of treatment and control of blood pressure in patients with resistant hypertension remain vaguely clarified. Data from small clinical studies and observational cohorts suggest that patients with resistant hypertension are at increased cardiovascular risk, while control of blood pressure offers substantial benefits. It has to be noted however that data from appropriate large randomized studies are missing, and resistant hypertension remains remarkably understudied. Resistant hypertension has attracted significant scientific interest lately, as new therapeutic modalities become available. The interventional management of resistant hypertension either by carotid baroreceptor stimulation or renal sympathetic denervation is currently under investigation with promising preliminary results. This review presents available evidence regarding the benefits of treatment and control of blood pressure in patients with resistant hypertension and offers a critical evaluation of existing data in this field.
Doumas et al. (Wed,) studied this question.