Late results after surgical treatment of renovascular hypertension. A follow-up study of 122 patients 2-18 years after surgery

During the period 1963-1980, 122 patients were operated on for renovascular hypertension at surgical department D, vascular section, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen. Seventeen patients with a median age of 24 years, had fibromuscular hyperplasia and 95 patients, with a median age of 48 years, had atherosclerosis. Twenty-four of the latter had bilateral renal artery lesions and 71 had unilateral disease. Ten patients had various other causes of renovascular hypertension. Operative mortality was 4.9%, decreasing to two per cent in the last 8 years. At discharge, 71% of the patients were normotensive without medication, 18% were improved, and 11% were unimproved. At follow-up in 1982, the actuarial 10-year survival rates for patients with unilateral and bilateral atherosclerotic disease were 65% and 48%, respectively. There was no difference between survival rates for patients with fibromuscular hyperplasia and an age- and sex-matched population. Sixty-nine patients were reexamined with a median follow-up of 9 years. Of the survivors with atherosclerosis, 87% benefitted from the operation: 50% were normotensive without medication and 37% were improved. Of patients with fibromuscular hyperplasia, 93% benefitted from operation: 79% were normotensive and 14% were improved. The results support the value of surgery in patients with renal fibromuscular hyperplasia and to the long-term benefits of surgical treatment of patients with atherosclerotic renovascular disease.