Renal denervation: back to reality, finally!

Abstract

In the review published in the present issue of European Heart Journal – Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy,1 Kjeldsen and co-authors provided a comprehensive state of the art on renal denervation (RDN), updated at September 2014. The article depicts accurately the rise and fall of the use of RDN in treatment-resistant hypertension (TRH), and the abrupt change in the scientific community's opinion provoked by the publication of the results of the Simplicity HTN-3 study.2 It is now recognized that the enthusiasm raised after the publication of the first proof-of-concept studies was exaggerated and that more caution would have been more appropriate. The solitary role of the industry in promoting research on RDN, the heavy marketing campaign conducted before solid scientific evidence was obtained, and many pitfalls in the design of the early studies had been highlighted even before … [↵][1]*Corresponding author. Tel: +39 050 993458, Fax: +39 050 992409, Email: stefano.taddei{at}med.unipi.it [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1