[Renal artery intervention in the post-CORAL era - obsolete or sometimes reasonable?]

Significant renal artery stenosis may cause both secondary therapy-resistant arterial hypertension and renal failure. We report the case of a 74-year old man with an occlusion of the right renal artery and a stenosis of the left renal artery causing right sided renal atrophy, renal failure and resistant arterial hypertension. Revascularization with percutaneous renal angioplasty (PTRA)/stenting of the left renal artery helped to improve both kidney function and hypertension control. Interestingly, the patient would not have qualified for any of the recent randomized outcome trials. Therefore, renal artery intervention remains a reasonable option in highly and interdisciplinarily selected patients, despite the more conservative treatment approach after the recent trials.