Venous reactivity in canine renovascular hypertension

Abstract

The responsiveness of arterial smooth muscle to vasoactive stimuli is enhanced hypertension. It is however, unclear whether this increased reactivity is a generalised property of vascular smooth muscle, involving veins as well. We examined the responses of rings of cephalic veinin vitro taken from 11 dogs with chronic renovascular hypertension and 10 normal dogs. Mean blood pressure was 129 ± 3 mmHg in the hypertensive dogs, 26% above control. Veins from hypertensive dogs had steeper passive circumference-tension relationships than veins from normal dogs, indicating reduced compliance. Sensitivity (defined as location of EC50) to potassium depolarisation was unchanged, but maximal contractil..