Neoplasm and arterial hypertension - do any correlations exist?

Hanna Kara-Perz; Teresa Kosicka; Jerzy Głuszek

Vol 12, No 4 (2008)

Review paper

Published online: 2008-09-01

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Neoplasm and arterial hypertension - do any correlations exist?

Hanna Kara-Perz, Teresa Kosicka, Jerzy Głuszek

Nadciśnienie tętnicze 2008;12(4):309-315.

Vol 12, No 4 (2008)

REVIEV

Published online: 2008-09-01

Abstract

In this paper we collected the results of the recent investigations concerning the main connections between arterial hypertension and cancer. Lately there has been a great interest concerning frequent occurrence of hypertension as a result of antineoplastic medication with angiogenesis inhibitors. Pathogenetic mechanism leading to blood pressure elevation may be connected with vascular rarefaction, reduced nitric oxide synthesis and vascular constriction.
The next problem is a role of hypertension as a cancer promoting factor. Many researchers observed correlation between hypertension and cancer risk. The others did not prove this finding.
The third question is whether antihypertensive therapy could be a risk factor of cancer.
The majority of investigations denies this association between antihypertensive drugs and an increased cancer risk, nevertheless diuretics probably may increase cancer risk, while ACE-inhibitors seem to have a small protective effect.