Hypertension guidelines: How do they apply to kidney transplant recipients

Hypertension is common among kidney transplant recipients and may result from traditional risk factors or transplant specific variables, which commonly include donor associated causes, immunosuppression, or transplant renal artery stenosis. Uncontrolled blood pressure in this patient population is associated with increased cardiovascular mortality and morbidity, and decreased graft survival. Despite these negative associations, there are no randomized controlled trials looking at the optimal blood pressure targets and identifying the best antihypertensive regimen for this special patient population. Multiple hypertension guidelines have been published in the last 10 years, but the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) and American Society of Transplantation (AST) guidelines are the only to recommended a target blood pressure in kidney transplant recipients. In this manuscript, we will review the available evidence based on randomized clinical trials and large observational studies in kidney transplant recipients. Pending new interventional trials, we believe that: a) a blood pressure target of ≤130/80 is a reasonable goal as suggested by KDIGO; b) the choice of antihypertensive agent should be based on the patients' other comorbidities; and c) achieving good blood pressure control is more important than the choice of the antihypertensive agent; however, the initial choice of antihypertensive medications should be calcium channel blockers, beta-blockers, diuretics, and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers as they have all been shown to reduce cardiovascular events in the general population.