Renal denervation for treating hypertension: experience at the University Hospital in Lyon

International audience; AIM: We report the first experience of Lyon's university hospital regarding renal denervation to treat patients with resistant essential hypertension. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Over a one-year period, 17 patients were treated (12 men, 5 women) with renal denervation. Baseline characteristics were as follows: age 56.5+/-11.5 years, BMI 33+/-5kg/m(2) and ambulatory blood pressure 157+/-16/87+/-13mmHg with 4.2+/-1.5 anti-hypertensive treatment. RESULTS: We did not observe intra-operative or early complications. After a median follow-up of 3 months and with the same anti-hypertensive treatment, office systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) decrease respectively of 20+/-15 (P\textless0.001) and 10+/-13mmHg (P=0.014) (n=17). After six months of follow-up, ambulatory blood pressure (ABPM) decrease of 17.5+/-14.9mmHg (P=0.027) for SBP and of 10.5+/-9.6mmHg (P=0.029) for DBP (n=6). Among these patients, five of them were controlled (ABPM inferior to 130/80mmHg) and electrical left ventricular hypertrophy indexes decreased: R wave in aVL lead of 4+/-3mm (P=0.031), Sokolow index of 3+/-3mm (P=0.205), Cornell voltage criterion of 9+/-7mm (P=0.027) and Cornell product of 1310+/-1104 (P=0.027). CONCLUSION: Our results are in accordance with data from other centers. On average blood pressure decreases significantly but important inter individual variations are observed. The procedure seems safe.