How are kidney failure and hypertension related?

The article was professionally consulted by Specialist Doctor I Nguyen Hung - Endocrinologist - Department of Medical Examination & Internal Medicine - Vinmec Da Nang International General Hospital. The doctor has 36 years of working experience.

High blood pressure can cause kidney failure, and kidney failure can lead to high blood pressure. Because there is a relationship, so patients with kidney failure need treatment to prevent hypertension, as well as people with high blood pressure should be controlled to avoid dangerous complications of chronic kidney failure.

Patients with long-term dual hypertension will damage and gradually destroy the blood vessels in the body. This interferes with the blood supply to other organs, including the kidneys. In addition, high blood pressure also destroys the filter in the glomerulus, resulting in the kidneys not being able to filter out toxic and excess waste products. Excess water in the blood vessels increases more and more causing blood pressure to increase. These two conditions complement each other causing uncontrolled long-term hypertension leading to severe chronic kidney failure.
Meanwhile, the kidneys have a function of keeping blood pressure stable. Once damaged, the function is affected, the ability to regulate blood pressure automatically decreases, making it difficult for blood pressure to be regulated and increased. Kidney failure and high blood pressure make the patient's kidney disease worse. Thereby to see, hypertension is one of the dangerous complications of chronic kidney failure.

Hypertensive renal failure is associated with more systolic blood pressure than diastolic blood pressure. Renal damage due to hypertension manifests itself in the form of microalbumin, proteinuria, and renal failure. Thus, the assessment of kidney damage in hypertensive people is mainly based on tests.
Most people with high blood pressure have a very high risk of kidney failure. Patients need to be carried out tests such as blood creatinine test, urinalysis, GFR test and urine protein. Besides, it is necessary to use ultrasound to detect normal kidney function, electrocardiogram to check heart function, test for glucose, blood fat,... to determine the exact health situation.
After detecting, the doctor will make a treatment plan for the patient. Patients need to monitor blood pressure regularly, adhere to the treatment regimen to minimize complications of hypertension to the kidneys as well as vice versa.

Patients need to achieve the goal of treatment to control blood pressure below 130/80mmHg, prevent kidney damage from getting worse, and prevent cardiovascular risk. During treatment, patients need to have periodic tests to assess the level of kidney failure, measure the amount of potassium in the blood, to adjust the medicine and the best diet for the disease. Renal scintigraphy is a highly effective method of diagnosis and treatment of acute renal failure. This is a technique to evaluate kidney function using modern high-precision recording devices. Kidney scintigraphy produces high-quality images that show the exact condition of the kidney and kidney failure in order to have the right and most effective treatment.
Vinmec Times City International General Hospital uses the SPECT/CT Discovery NM/CT 670 Pro equipment system, with the most modern 16-row CT of the world's leading medical equipment company GE Healthcare (USA), for high-quality images, helping to diagnose diseases that need to be investigated early.
Vinmec team of experienced doctors, well-trained at home and abroad, directly advise and provide maximum support to customers during the shooting process, even for foreign customers .