Chronic Treatment of Resistant Hypertension with an Implantable Medical Device

The prevalence of resistant hypertension continues to increase and the standard approaches of therapeutic lifestyle changes and drug therapy are ineffective in bringing many of these patients to goal blood pressure. Electrical stimulation of the carotid sinus baroreceptor through a surgically implanted device is presently under clinical investigation and is showing some encouraging early results. This review discusses the evolution of this therapy including a review of the current data available from the early stages of ongoing clinical trials.