Renovascular hypertension: easier diagnosis and treatment with intravenous renal arteriography and percutaneous transluminal dilatation.

For the diagnosis of renovascular disease, the authors propose the use of intravenous arteriography with photographic subtraction as the method of choice and advise the use of pyelogram wash-out to assess the functional significance of the stenosis. Furthermore they report their experience with percutaneous transluminal dilatation in 41 patients (10 fibrotic--31 atherosclerotic renal artery stenoses) and suggest that this method is valid alternative to surgery specially in poor risk patients. A controlled trial of this method versus surgery needs however to be undertaken to define the respective roles of these treatments.