Influence of neonatal thymectomy on blood pressure and hypertensive vascular disease in rats with renal hypertension.

The effect of neonatal thymectomy on the degree and prognosis of hypertension and on the vascular lesions in rats with renal hypertension was studied. There were no differences between thymectomized and sham operated hypertensive rats. The degree of hypertension, the frequency of spontaneous death and heart infarcts were the same in both groups. The occurrence and degree of perivascular cell infiltrations, deposits of perivascular connective tissue and fibrinoid degenerations of the media were found to be the same in both the thymectomized and the sham operated hypertensive animals. The results do not support the assumption that delayed type immune reactions are important in the pathogenesis of hypertensive vascular disease in renal hypertensive rats.