InflammaTENSION
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A study of the roles of the immune and inflammatory systems in hypertension.
IRAS ID
224036
Contact name
Tomasz Guzik
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Clinical Research and Development, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Hypertension is a common disease impacting 1 billion people worldwide, which leads to catastrophic cardiovascular complications, including heart failure, dementia, myocardial infarction and stroke - all of which carry a severe socioeconomic burden. In spite of many years of research, the cause of primary hypertension remains unknown and this disease is uncontrolled in a large proportion of patients. We propose to investigate the cytokine and cellular immune signature of primary hypertension in 120 patients with primary hypertension and 120 age, sex and BMI matched controls. To gain additional insight into mechanistic links between the inflammatory nature of hypertension and its well characterised vascular and renal aspects we propose to study the relationships and predictive value of the immune signature of hypertension and clinical phenotypes of hypertension including (i) blood pressure parameters measured by ambulatory blood pressure measurements (ABPM) (ii) endothelial function assessed by Endo-PAT2000 and flow mediated dilatation (FMD) both complementary non-invasive techniques. (iii) vascular stiffness and central pressure assessed by Sphygmocor (iv) renal function parameters (v) cognitive function using questionnaires. Moreover, we propose to define genetic determinants of immune signature of hypertension which could be used for future mendelian randomization studies. InflammaTENSION will result in the discovery of novel biomarkers, which may identify patients who could benefit from such immune targeted therapies. Importantly, we have already made the seminal observation that the immune system not only mediates target organ damage, but defines the roles of pro-inflammatory T cells, monocytes, as well as anti-inflammatory T regulatory cells in the disease process. Such a coordinated and integrative study aims to better understand the role of dysregulation of the immune system in human hypertension. This will have a major impact on the field, enabling translation of these exciting findings to clinical practice.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 5
REC reference
17/WS/0115
Date of REC Opinion
27 Jun 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion