Time to Find an Optimal Treatment for Renal Artery Stenosis.

Trials indicate that angioplasty confers little to no benefit for hypertensive patients with renal artery stenosis; however, this does not necessarily mean that the treatment is ineffective under all circumstances, researchers say in a recent JAMA viewpoint. The authors note that the trials all included patients with extensive disease who already had irreversible kidney damage, and therefore it is no surprise that revascularization would not restore renal perfusion. They suggest exploring whether angioplasty added to optimal antiatherosclerotic treatment for hypertensive patients with low-grade renal artery stenosis will produce better outcomes in terms of renal function than medical treatment alone.