Normal Arterial Pressure in Patients With Renal Arterial Stenosis

Abstract

EARLY CLINICAL EXPERIENCE with renal arterial stenosis^1,2 suggested that the accompanying hypertension was severe and often of the malignant variety. Later, it became apparent that such lesions could be associated with extremely fluctuant arterial pressure levels^3,4 and that occasionally hypertension disappeared.⁵ Sutton and associates,⁶ and, more recently, Eyler and co-workers⁷ have reported finding severe renal arterial stenosis in normotensive patients who were investigated because of peripheral vascular disease. This report describes a study of hypertension and renal arterial stenosis in a group of patients in whom renal arteriograms were obtained incidentally in the course of translumbar aortography for peripheral vascular disease. About 40% were found to have stenosis of one or both main renal arteries, but one half of these were normotensive. Plan of Study A review of translumbar aortograms, performed for diagnosis of aorto-iliac occlusive arterial disease since 1953, yielded 149 renal arteriograms of