Quantitative Determination of Renal Vascular Changes Related to Age and Hypertension

In 101 autopsy cases, the degrees of stenosis, hyalinization, and fibro-elastic hyperplasia of arterioles and small arteries of the kidney were quan-titatively determined and the correlations of each change with age and with antemortem blood pressure level were studied. Renal vascular changes are caused by factor(s) related to age, but markedly accelerated by hypertension. In the presence of hypertension the progression of stenosis of arterioles is nearly the same as that of small arteries. Hyalinization of arterioles and fibroelastic hyperplasia of arterioles and of small arteries progress with age, but hyalinization of arterioles is related more closely to hypertension than to aging, and fibroelastic hyperplasia is more closely related to aging than to hypertension.The degree of stenosis of renal vessels is more closely correlated with systolic than with diastolic blood pressure, particularly in small arteries; arteriolar hyalinization is somewhat more closely correlated with an increase in diastolic than in systolic blood pressure. The correlation between fibroelastic hyperplasia and blood pressure is relatively poor.