Hypertension eliminated with funding hope

Melbourne researchers are striving to secure funding for a revolutionary therapy for hypertension – the number one risk factor for premature death in Australia.

Hypertension or high blood pressure is the prime cause in 50 to 60% of stroke patients and affects one in three adults in Australia.

It also has a significant role in heart disease and kidney failure.

In 2007, Professor Rob Whitbourn began working with Melbourne’s Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute on a world-first trial for the procedure known as renal denervation.

It requires a sheath to be placed in the femoral artery through the groin and a small catheter placed in the renal artery on either side.

The device then delivers high frequency radio waves to effectively switch off hyperactive sympathetic nerves that fuel dangerously high blood pressure.

A fifth of patients in the trial were able to reduce their medications after having the treatment. More than 80% had a significant reduction in blood pressure.

“We’ve substantially reduced the risks of all those events, such as stroke and heart attack, in those patients,” Professor Whitbourn said.

Other major public hospitals are now in the process of offering the treatment to patients after the procedure was pioneered in Melbourne.

Professor Whitbourn said people who suffer from high blood pressure have tried almost every medication, and have had multiple complications and side effects.

“So for them this is a lifesaving procedure in their eyes,” he said. Professor Whitbourn said patients who have had the treatment call it the ‘Holy Grail’.

However, the procedure is expensive; costing about $8,000 to $10,000 per patient, and St Vincent’s public hospital is footing the bill.

“We have made an application to the State Government under a New Technologies Grant for funding, which we’re hopeful we’ll get. But all the centres throughout Australia will be in the same situation all trying to fund this, and we need some sort of recurrent form of funding to continue on with this treatment,” Professor Whitbourn said.

The Victorian government is expected to decide this week if it will grant the $2 million needed to treat another 200 patients.

A healthy blood pressure reading is a peak of 120 over a resting level of 80.

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