Effect of renal denervation for patients with isolated systolic hypertension: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND

Renal denervation (RDN) is a promising treatment based on catheter intervention for patients with refractory hypertension. However, the effect in patients with isolated systolic hypertension (ISH) remains controversial. The aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the blood pressure lowing effect of RDN in patients with ISH compared with combined systolic/diastolic hypertension (CH) patients.

METHODS

PubMed, Embase, Cochrane and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for prospective clinical studies that included RDN. The outcomes of interest were the change of 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure (SBP) from baseline. We used the fixed effects model to calculate weighted mean difference (WMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI).

RESULTS

Six trials were included, with 1405 participants, including 597 patients with ISH and 808 patients with CH. Mean follow-up was five months. The reduction of 24-hour ambulatory SBP was significantly greater for the CH patients than the ISH patients (WMD = 3.89, 95% CI: 2.32-5.45, < 0.0001). RDN also showed a greater reduction in office SBP in the CH patients compared to the ISH patients (WMD = 10.24, 95% CI: 4.24-15.74, = 0.0003). And the effect was independent of age, length of follow-up, and ablation device.

CONCLUSIONS

RDN provides superior blood pressure control in the CH patients compared with the ISH patients, and the CH patients may be the best suitable population for which RDN is indicated.