[Classification of physico-mechanical mechanisms in primary hypertension]

Arterial hypertension (AH) is a serious disease with high prevalence in the developed countries. In majority of the AH cases, their origin stays unknown (primary AH). There is a great number of variants in primary AH illustrating the complexity of the disease pathogenesis. We tried out to define a classification of primary AH based on the biomechanical mechanisms of elevated blood pressure, though we accept that the pathogenesis of AH includes also malfunction of one (or more) control mechanism for the initiation of compensation. We have brought some examples of unhomologated data in the literature dealing with flow conditions in the vascular system. This may explain the underestimation of the role of the rheological properties of the blood and the function of precapillary sphincters in the ethiopathogenesis of AH.