Renal denervation (RDN) is effective in lowering blood pressure (BP) in patients with hypertension. The issue remains how to best identify potential responders. Ambulatory BP monitoring may be useful. Baseline nighttime systolic BP (SBP) ≥136 mm Hg and its variability (SD) ≥12 mm Hg in DENER-HTN trial or 24-hour heart rate ≥73.5 bpm in SPYRAL HTN-OFF MED Trial were shown to predict the BP response to RDN. We applied these criteria to the patients with hypertension in the sham-controlled RADIANCE-HTN SOLO trial to predict the BP response to ultrasound RDN at 2 months while patients were maintained off medications. BP responders were defined as: clinical with 24-hour SBP <130 mm Hg (RDN: 22/64 versus sham: 7/58); meaningful with 24-hour SBP reduction ≥10 mm Hg (RDN: 24/64, sham: 7/58); and extreme with 24-hour SBP reduction above mean+2 SD of the SBP decrease in the sham group, that is, ≥16.5 mm Hg (RDN: 10/64 versus sham: 2/58). The predictive criteria reported above were tested for sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values. The predictive value varied according to the definition of response, with the clinical definition being strongly influenced by regression to the mean. Baseline nighttime SBP and its variability, especially when combined, offered good specificity (>90% irrespective of definition) but low sensitivity (from 9.1% to 30% depending on the definition) to predict responders; the heart rate criterion had insufficient predictive value. This analysis suggests the potential role of nighttime SBP and its variability to predict BP response to RDN in patients with hypertension. Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT02649426.
Keywords: ambulatory blood pressure monitoring; blood pressure variability; heart rate; hypertension; renal denervation.