Evolution of aortic hyperplasia after reversal of renovascular hypertension in the rat.

Unclipping of Goldblatt one-kidney, one clip hypertensive rats leads to a rapid correction of the high blood pressure. Simultaneously, the aortic smooth muscle cell proliferation wave is stopped. Any further proliferation is prevented but the proliferation changes previously established cannot be reversed. Thus, provided clip removal is performed at the earliest phase of hypertension, it can modify the time-course of the aortic proliferation changes. On the contrary, the heart hypertrophy is significantly improved regardless of the unclipping time. Accordingly, the response of the hypertensive cardiovascular modifications to an antihypertensive therapy cannot be regarded as a whole since it is dependent on the cardiovascular target as well as on the onset time of treatment.