Renal denervation shows favourable hepatic effects

In patients with uncontrolled hypertension and cardiometabolic comorbidities, renal denervation appears to improve hepatic steatosis, according to a small study.

A total of 42 patients with uncontrolled hypertension and cardiometabolic comorbidities participated in the study. Of these, 32 were allocated to the group that underwent renal denervation and 10 to the group that underwent sham procedure.

The main outcome of hepatic steatosis was assessed at baseline and follow-up visits using noninvasive tests, including the hepatic steatosis index (HSI) and fatty liver index (FLI). An external cohort from the UK Biobank was used to validate the correlation between proton density fat fraction magnetic resonance imaging scans of the liver and these surrogates.

Significant reductions in HSI were observed in the renal denervation group vs the control group at 3 months (−1.3 vs 0.4; p=0.009), 6 months (−2.6 vs 0; p=0.027), and 12 months (−2.1 vs 0; p=0.013).

Results were similar for FLI, with greater decreases observed in the renal denervation group vs the control group at 3 months (−3.8 vs 2.6; p=0.021), 6 months (−5.7 vs 4.1; p=0.002), and 12 months (−6.2 vs 2; p=0.018).

Compared with those in the control group, patients in the renal denervation group whose office blood pressure decreased above or below the median of 19.5 mm Hg after 12 months showed no significant differences in HSI (−1.9 vs −2.2; p=0.77) and FLI (−7.1 vs −5.3; p=0.49).

In the UK Biobank, correlation analysis indicated a significant association between proton density fat fraction MRI and HSI (r=0.40; p<0.0001) and FLI (r=0.27; p<0.0001).