Recent randomized sham-controlled trials have demonstrated significant blood pressure reductions following renal denervation (RDN) in patients with hypertension, both in the presence and absence of antihypertensive therapy. These new data encouraged us to revisit previously published insights into potential clinical trial confounding factors that informed forthcoming trials’ design and conduct.
Initially identified confounders related to procedural technique, medication variability, and selected patient subgroups have been addressed in contemporary trial design. Regarding procedural method and technology, blood pressure reductions may be improved by ensuring circumferential lesion creation in the distal renal arteries and branch vessels. Safety of the RDN procedure has been demonstrated in multiple independent meta-analyses, including thousands of treated patients with low reported rates of renal vessel complications and maintenance of renal function. Despite advances in procedural technique and clinical trial conduct, inconsistent antihypertensive-drug adherence behavior remains perhaps the most critical clinical trial design issue for device-based hypertension therapies.
As the balance in clinical equipoise increasingly favors RDN, justification of sham-controlled trial designs will be revisited, and novel study designs may be required to evaluate the safety and efficacy of novel devices and procedures intended to address the escalating prevalence of poorly controlled hypertension.
Ref: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.15745
