Hypertension and arteriolar sclerosis of the kidney, pancreas, adrenal gland, and liver.

Replicate slides of autopsy specimens (kidney, pancreas, adrenal glands, and liver) from 66 hospital patients who had lengthy outpatient records of their blood pressure levels were randomized and graded blindly for the severity of hypertensive fibroproliferative-mediodegeneration lesions of arterioles (arplasia). For all four tissues, the severity of lesions correlated significantly with the level of the blood pressure. Between blood pressure and lesions the correlation coefficient was significantly smaller (P Less Than 0.01) for liver and adrenal than for kidney. The correlation coefficient was also smaller for pancreas than for kidney, but the statistical significance of the difference (0.3 Greater Than P Greater Than 0.2) was not conclusive. The results tend to confirm the conclusions of the classic 1937 report of Moritz and Oldt, adding strength to their generalization that "Arteriolar sclerosis is the most common cause of chronic hypertension."