[Malignant arterial hypertension (HTAM) with severe systolic dysfunction of the reversible left ventricle]

Malignant arterial hypertension is still present in current clinical care despite the fact that for more than three decades we have had a wide range of antihypertensive drugs to control high blood pressure. It is essential to know how to detect it in time due to its high risk to life, with poor short-term prognosis if not treated properly. It may present with nonspecific, but potentially serious, clinical symptoms or manifest clinically as a hypertensive emergency accompanied by hypertensive encephalopathy and multi-organ failure. We present a case of a 49-year-old woman, attended in our hospital who had an initial hypertension of 223/170mmHg accompanied by multi-organ failure, who progressed satisfactorily with antihypertensive treatment.

[Hypertensive crisis and sudden change of vision in young patients]

The sudden change in vision is a medical emergency that must be evaluated immediately to rule out important institutions as systemic vasculitis or ischemic stroke. Its association with hypertensive crisis makes it necessary to rule out accelerated-malignant hypertension, which is accompanied by other retinal disorders (exudates and hemorrhages) and adrenal involvement. Nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (AION) is another entity to consider, as is it not uncommon in the young (12.7% in a series of 848 cases). Its association with hypertension has been described in 32% of cases.

[The role of clevidipine in hypertension management: clinical results]

The prevalence of hypertension in general population is from 30% to 45%(.) Anesthesiologists frequently deal with the challenge of maintaining adequate control of perioperative blood pressure. On sudden elevations, a precise control is required to prevent end-organ damage. Recently, clevidipine, an ultra-short acting calcium antagonist has been approved by the FDA (www.accessdata.fda.gov), as a strategy for the intravenous treatment of hypertension; and by the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (www.aemps.gob.es) for the rapid reduction of arterial blood pressure in the perioperative setting. This medication has shown to have a rapid onset, easy titratability, and to exert a precise control of blood pressure. In addition, clevidipine has shown to be highly effective as monotherapy, and to have an excellent transition to oral antihypertensive therapy. For this article, an online search of the Medline literature was conducted up to February 2014 and "clevidipine" and "hypertension" used as keywords in order to analyze pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of clevidipine. There are also clinical studies that provide evidence of the rapid and effective control that clevidipine has on blood pressure, especially in acute perioperative and emergency settings.