EFFECTIVE RENAL BLOOD FLOW IN THE SEPARATE KIDNEYS OF SUBJECTS WITH ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSION 1

Abstract

The clearance method was applied to the measurement of the renal blood flow, the filtration rate and the tubular excretory mass in the separate kidneys of patients with essential hypertension. The destruction of tubular tissue progresses equally in both kidneys in hypertensive disease and the functional disturbance in respect to blood flow and filtration rate is shared equally by both kidneys. In no instance in the 21 hypertensive subjects picked at random is there any indication of a unilateral ischemic kidney. If it is predicated that renal ischemia is the primary causal factor in all essential hypertension, it would be expected that unilateral impairment of renal function would be observed more frequently than bilateral impairment. The absence of unilateral impairment in these subjects argues against the above premise.