Investigation of the Efficacy and Safety of Baroreflex Activation Therapy in Patients With Refractory Hypertension and Those With Highly Variable Blood Pressure Due to Peripheral Baroreflex Failure

Hypertension is a major health issue globally and is the number one risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Despite decades of innovation in pharmacotherapeutics, suboptimal BP control remains a problem worldwide. Alternative therapies for hypertension are therefore urgently needed.

This project addresses the following important unmet needs:

1. . Refractory hypertension may respond to device based approaches such as baroreflex activation therapy (BAT) but further independent research is needed to clarify the role of novel technologies. It is not possible to undertake research into BAT at all due to lack of funding and the manufacturer is not undertaking clinical trials of the therapy in the UK.
2. . Patients with highly variable BP disorders constitute a very small but important sub-group of the hypertensive population but are the most challenging to manage as no drug therapy exists to combat high and low BP simultaneously. This group of patients have very poor quality of life and are unable to work due to their profound BP variability. Many of them experience frequent hospital admissions for lengthy periods as a result of potentially life-threatening hypertension. Treatment with BAT may feasibly improve management of their condition by dampening BP variability and preventing hypertensive surges whilst allowing the patients to continue with measures to prevent hypotension using compression hosiery and drugs.

This project has the following objectives

Primary: