Renal denervation safe, but fails to meet primary end-points in Symplicity 3

Top-line results of the Symplicity 3 trial were revealed this week, showing that despite being safe, renal denervation was no better than a sham procedure at controlling blood pressure at 6 months. As reported on Medscape:

The trial's data safety monitoring board, however, determined that the trial did meet its primary safety endpoint, the rate of major adverse events a month after randomization and renal artery stenosis through 6 months.

"We felt it was important that we share the top-line results with the medical community and with patients as soon as we could," one of the co-principal investigators of the trial, Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said in an email to MedPage Today. "We are still analyzing the large amount of data from the trial, and once we have a full understanding of the results and implications to the field, we will submit for peer review, presentation, and publication."

More complete results might be available in the spring of 2014, but for now the hypertension community remain disappointed with this outcome.