Laparoscopic Renal Denervation System for Treating Resistant Hypertension: Overcoming Limitations of Catheter-Based Approaches

Goal: In a pivotal clinical trial, the percutaneous catheter-based renal denervation system developed to treat resistant hypertension did not show effectiveness in reducing blood pressure because of its fundamental limitation to ablate deeper nerves present around the renal artery. Methods: We propose a new renal denervation strategy called laparoscopic denervation system (LDS) based on laparoscopy procedure to ablate the renal nerves completely but inhibit the thermal arterial damage. The system has flexible electrodes to bend around the arterial wall to ablate nerves. The simulation study using validated in silico models evaluated the heat distribution on the outer arterial wall,and an acute animal study (swine model) was conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of LDS in vivo. Results: The simulation study confirmed that LDS could localize the heat distribution between the electrode and the outer arterial wall. In the animal study, we could maximize nerve denervation by the localizing ablation energy within the renal nerves and achieve nerve denaturation and decrease in neural density by 20.78% (P <; 0.001), while maintaining a constant tip temperature of 65 °C for the duration of 70 s treatment. The study confirmed intact lumen artery through histological analysis and acute reduction in systolic blood pressure by 9.55 mmHg (p <; 0.001) Conclusion: The LDS presented here has potential to effectively and safely ablate the renal nerves, independent of anatomical variation and nerve distribution, to control hypertension in real clinical conditions. Significance: LDS approach is innovative, inventive, and presents a novel technique to treat hypertension.