Acute blockage of the renin system and differential renal vein renin determinations in the diagnosis of renovascular hypertension.

For validation of differential renal vein renin determinations in the diagnosis of renovascular hypertension (RVH), we investigated 102 patients suspected of suffering from RVH before and 1 h after administration of 25 mg captopril. Sensitivity, specificity and posterior probability for renin ratio (RR) and renin secretion (RS) were calculated based on 44 patients with proven RVH and 58 patients with primary hypertension (PH) using discriminant analysis. There is good (> 95%) and identical specificity of both variables under all conditions, whereas sensitivity remains poor even after Captopril administration (RR 23% vs. 32%; RS 20% vs. 34%). The posterior probabilities obtained by discriminant analysis revealed a cut-off point of 2.5 for the renin ratio and of 1.9 for the renin secretion. No change is observed after ACE inhibition. We conclude that the acute blockade of the renin system by captopril in differential renin sampling yields no advantages in diagnosing RVH and that there is no difference between RR and RS in the diagnosis of RVH.