Diazoxide-induced renin release in diagnosis of remediable renovascular hypertension.

In hypertensive patients with unilateral renal artery stenosis, intravenous diazoide increased renal vein renin activity more on the involved side than on the contralateral side, whereas, in a group with predominantly unilateral renal parenchymal disease, the increase in renal vein was similar for both kidneys. In patients with bilateral renal artery stenosis, the use of diazoxide was helpful in lateralizing the dominant ischaemic lesion. Diazoide administration appears to be a safe, rapid and convenient method of increasing the sensitivity of the renal vein renin test used in predicting the outcome of surgical treatment of renovascular hypertension. Bilateral renal vein renin determination of established value in the diagnosis of functional renal ischaemia. 1-4 However, in the use of this procedure to predict the efficacy of corrective surgery, false positive and false negative results still occur. Thus, various manoeuvres which stimulate renin release have been employed to improve the sensitivity of the test. 5-7 We report a new application the practical approach to of this procedure in the diagnosis of renal hypertension, which both basal and stimulated levels of renal venous renin activitity can be measured during a brief period of bilateral renal vein catherization.