Resistant Hypertension in African Americans

Resistant hypertension is defined as blood pressure that remains above goal in spite of the concurrent use of 3 antihypertensive agents of different classes or the concurrent use of 4 or more antihypertensive agents regardless of control. Its diagnosis is important for the identification of patients who are at high risk of having reversible causes of hypertension and/or patients who, because of persistently high blood pressure levels, may benefit from special diagnostic and therapeutic considerations. Resistant hypertension represents an extreme phenotype, thus, it has been predicted that genetic factors could play a larger role than for the general hypertensive population. Genetic assessments of patients with resistant hypertension have been limited. The current study assayed the exome of 91 African American patients with treatment resistant hypertension.