Small stent solves a big problem A patient near him, just in his early 40s, had a history of hypertension for 8 years and had to take 4 kinds of antihypertensive drugs every day to keep his blood pressure barely under control. After a few weeks, he sought out Professor Gu Yongquan of the Department of Vascular Surgery at Xuanwu Hospital. After careful examination by Professor Gu, the diagnosis was clarified and a small stent was implanted into the artery of this distressed patient. On the operating table, as the stent unfolded, the patient’s blood pressure on the monitor quickly approached normal, and it did not rebound at all even after all the antihypertensive drugs were stopped after the operation. In this way, the patient said goodbye to hypertension and lived a new life. You may ask, “Is this a mythical TV show? No, this is a real thing, and it happened in Xuanwu Hospital’s vascular surgery department. A small stent changed the patient’s life and saved his health. Guo Jianming, Department of Vascular Surgery, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University In the clinic, we can always see, as mentioned above, some distressed patients with hypertension, who take a large number of antihypertensive drugs every day, carefully counting as many as four or five, even so, blood pressure is always poorly controlled and unsatisfactory. Over time, patients themselves lose confidence in controlling blood pressure, and worse, many patients do not have effective control of blood pressure for a long time, eventually leading to damage to multiple organs such as the heart, brain and blood vessels, kidneys and retina. In fact, in such patients, behind the stubborn hypertension, there often hides a cunning and difficult enemy – renal artery stenosis. Simply put, because renal artery stenosis causes problems in the self-regulation of blood pressure in the body, which leads to hypertension. Moreover, if the stenosis is not lifted, the body will keep releasing signals that promote elevated blood pressure, which is why many patients take a lot of antihypertensive drugs with poor results. This killer is also destructive not only in terms of high blood pressure and the damage to multiple target organs throughout the body brought about by hypertension, but also, and especially important to note, in terms of the damage he does to the kidney function itself. Because of arterial stenosis, its blood flow supplying the kidneys will be reduced, and over time, the kidneys will gradually atrophy and eventually lose their function due to ischemia. Hypertension and kidney damage, these are the two most hated sins of this murderer. Therefore, in order to detect this killer early, it is recommended that patients with hypertension, especially those who developed hypertension at a young age and those with poor antihypertensive effect of medication, must be examined with renal artery vascular ultrasound, including renal artery MRI, to clarify the presence of arterial stenosis. Currently, for renal artery stenosis, Xuanwu Hospital Vascular Surgery Department adopts stent intervention. Without an incision, a small stent can correct the stenosis of the renal artery and normalize the blood flow, and the normal regulation of blood pressure is then restored, and the blood pressure level thus returns to normal. The effect of this procedure is immediate, and it is evident in the middle of the procedure. Looking back at the history, in 1981, Professor Dong Zongjun and Professor Zhang Jian of our department pioneered the first treatment of renal vascular hypertension in China using this technique, and for more than 30 years now, we are the first vascular surgery center in China to carry out this technique and have the most clinical experience so far, successfully treating hundreds of patients related to this technique, which has been universally affirmed by patients with renal artery stenosis hypertension who come to us from all over the world. It has made everyone get rid of the trouble of stubborn hypertension and avoid the doom of renal failure, and solved the really big problem with a small stent.