Refractory hypertension is a novel phenotype of antihypertensive treatment failure. The terms "refractory hypertension" and "resistant hypertension" were considered interchangeable for a long time and related to difficult-to-treat hypertension. Recently, the term "refractory hypertension" refers to a very small group of patients who do not really reach the target blood pressure for maximum antihypertensive therapy. In this review we discuss similarities and contrasts definition, prevalence, patient characteristics, risk factors, and possible underlying etiologies of refractory and resistant hypertension.

This paper presents state of the art of the problem of diagnosis and treatment of orthostatic hypotension (OH). It focuses on the developed algorithms for diagnostics of classical orthostatic hypotension (COH), initial orthostatic hypotension (IOH) and delayed orthostatic hypotension (DOH). It describes the necessary methods for the differential diagnosis of the OH causes. Comparative analysis of the European Society of Cardiology and American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association/Society of Cardiac Rhythm was performed. The treatment options for different groups of patients with orthostatic hypotension are described.

Aim. To study the main risk factors, clinical, laboratory and instrumental data, concomitant cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and associated clinical conditions in patients with controlled and uncontrolled hypertension, controlled resistant and uncontrolled resistant hypertension, refractory hypertension, and probably resistant and probably refractory hypertension based on retrospective analysis. Materials and methods. The study included 455 patients with hypertension. All patients were divided into 7 groups. The group of controlled hypertension included 240 patients (52.75%), controlled resistant hypertension 61 (13.4%), uncontrolled hypertension 10 (2.2%), uncontrolled resistant hypertension 53 (11.65%), refractory hypertension 63 (13.8%), probably resistant hypertension 15 (3.3%), probably refractory hypertension 13 (2.9%). Anamnesis (assessment of the duration and age of the onset of arterial hypertension, assessment of the presence of CVD), risk factors for the development of hypertension (obesity, dyslipidemia, impaired glucose tolerance and fasting glycemia, hyperuricemia, family history of CVD, early menopause in women; heart rate 80 beats/min, smoking), laboratory parameters (creatinine, glucose, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, uric acid) and instrumental methods of examination (ECG, echocardiography, clinic mean 24h BP, Holter monitoring, duplex BCA scanning) were assessed in all groups of patients based on the analysis of the medical history. Results. In this article we presented the results of a comparative analysis of patients with controlled hypertension, uncontrolled resistant hypertension, refractory and probably refractory hypertension. Patients with refractory hypertension were significantly more young, non-smokers and females compared with patients with uncontrolled resistant hypertension and controlled hypertension. Patients with refractory hypertension had greater prevalence of left ventricular hypertrophy according to ECG and echocardiography (p0.05). Fundus lesions were found exclusively in patients with uncontrolled hypertension, 55% of cases were found in the group of refractory hypertension (p0.05). There were no significant differences in the presence of BCA atherosclerosis between the groups. Patients with refractory hypertension were significantly more likely to have heart failure, a history of stroke and transient ischemic attack compared with patients from the group of controlled hypertension (p0.05). There was no significant difference in the presence of chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, atrial fibrillation between the groups. Conclusion. Patients with refractory hypertension are significantly more likely to have target organ damage and concomitant cardiovascular, cerebrovascular diseases than patients with controlled hypertension.