Carotid Baroreceptor Stimulation in Resistant Hypertension and Heart Failure.

A significant number of hypertensive subjects fail to achieve adequate blood pressure control despite adherence to maximal doses of several antihypertensive drugs. In the same way although medical and device therapies continue to improve the clinical course of heart failure patients, morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs remain high. Electrical stimulation of the carotid sinus is a new interesting approach for the treatment of resistant hypertension and heart failure. The purpose of this paper is to overview the argument starting from physiological background and evaluating the clinical results obtained with this approach in these pathophysiological conditions.