Surgical Treatment of Hypertension

The series of 156 hypertensive patients whose cases are considered in this paper were operated on during the past five years and followed for one to five years. The preoperative resting diastolic blood pressure levels ranged from 100 to 162 mm. of mercury. There were 92 women and 64 men. The average age of the women was 35 and of the men 40 and of the entire series 37. The ages ranged from 16 to 57 years. Included are 11 patients with pyelonephritis1and 1 with polycystic kidneys. They have done unusually well. Three patients with adrenal tumors,2cortical or medullary, which in retrospect appeared to be dominant factors in the hypertensive state are excluded. On the other hand, 6 patients with adrenal tumors which did not appear to have been of major importance are included. All of these had cortical adenomas, which, like all of the tumors,