Medtronic’s Nerve-Searing Therapy Treats Hypertension for Years
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A Medtronic Inc. device used to control hard-to-treat high blood pressure by burning overactive nerves with a burst of radio-frequency energy helped reduce the condition in 24 patients over three years in a study.
The device, dubbed Symplicity, is threaded using a catheter from an artery in the groin to nerves that lead to the kidneys. They were then seared to disable them in 153 patients with drug-resistant hypertension, the form seen in a third of those with the disease, or about 120 million people worldwide.