Recent developments in renal denervation

Renal denervation is a novel catheter based approach that has been shown to effectively lower blood pressure in patients with resistant hypertension. Small studies have shown additional benefits in patients being treated for hypertension, such as improvements in insulin sensitivity, sleep apnoea and arrhythmias. More recently, it has been used for the first time for the treatment of sympathetic overactivation in patients with chronic systolic heart failure. Currently renal denervation therapy uses electrode-tipped catheters which deliver radio frequency energy to sympathetic afferent and efferent nerves running close to the lumen of the renal arteries. Further trials are on-going to assess the utility of this novel therapy in disease states beyond resistant hypertension.