Cardiovascular complications in matched pairs of low and normal renin hypertensive patients.

A nomogram for plasma renin activity (PRA), based on 31 normal volunteers, was constructed, and the 95% tolerance limits were computed to the regression line of PRA on 24-h urinary sodium excretion. On this nomogram, reproducibility of the PRA profile for the same patient with essential hypertension was good. Retrospectively, 20 essential hypertension patients with low PRA were matched for age and sex with essential hypertension patients with normal PRA. No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups in either the number of cardiovascular complications or in the blood pressure means. It is concluded that the incidence of cardiovascular complications tends to be similar in all cases of essential hypertension of a similar degree of severity.