Continuing follow-up of malignant hypertension

The history of accelerated (malignant) hypertension is reviewed, and unsolved problems related to the disease are illustrated, including its relationship to malignant nephrosclerosis, as well as terminology, current frequency and treatment. Over the past 25 years, out of a series of 131 patients, 53 were classified as suffering from essential malignant hypertension, the only suitable model on which the effects of pharmacological treatment on the disease can correctly be evaluated. In 2000, there were 24 survivors in our series and the maximum follow-up was 290 months. Multiple daily B.P. self-measurements allowed us to establish that pharmacological treatment was only able to approximate, to a varying degree, the conventional threshold of 140/90. Yet, despite this incomplete control over blood pressure levels, renal function was maintained in those patients whose initial creatininemia levels had not been higher than 2 mg/L. The renal protection effect of treatment was preserved even in patients who relapsed into accelerated disease phase one or more times over the study period.