Regardless of the ongoing debate on the general effect of renal sympathetic denervation in therapy resistant hypertension, all trials published so far face the problem of a certain proportion of nonresponders to treatment. Previous data shows, that to some extent this might be attributable to arterial stiffening. Elevated invasive pulse wave velocity as an established marker for arterial stiffness has been found to be associated with nonresponse to renal denervation treatment in a smaller trial population. This trial attempts to assess the predictive value of different invasive and non-invasive markers for arterial stiffness in an adequately powered population.
