Abstract-The importance of volume status on blood pressure in hemodialysis patients has long been recognized. We hypothesized that the enhanced volume dependency of blood pressure is partly determined by ventricular stiffness at end systole. A total of 115 long-term hemodialysis patients were invited to receive a comprehensive, noninvasive cardiovascular examination. End-systolic elastance was determined by using a novel, noninvasive echo-Doppler technique. The positive ratios of the interdialytic systolic blood pressure change vs weight gain during the subsequent 25 hemodialysis sessions were averaged to obtain the volume sensitivity index (mm Hg/kg). H ypertension is present in Ϸ80% to 90% of patients by the time chronic renal failure progresses to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and is one of the major risk factors that contributes to the development of cardiovascular disease in patients undergoing dialysis. 1,2 A rational approach to this issue necessitates insight into the mechanisms that underlie hypertension in renal failure. 1 Volume expansion has long been considered the most important factor in the development and maintenance of hypertension in ESRD. 1,2 It is well accepted that hypertension can be controlled by adequate dialysis and the maintenance of dry weight in 85% to 90% of dialysis patients. In one center in Tassin, France, almost 98% of the patients were normotensive while receiving no medication by long, slow dialysis. 3,4 In contrast, Ϸ50% of hypertensive patients without renal function impairment are considered salt-sensitive and respond to diuretic therapy alone. 5,6 Thus, it is obvious that the sensitivity of blood pressure change to volume expansion or removal in patients with ESRD is increased compared with hypertensive patients with normal renal function. The mechanisms by which volume expansion leads to an elevation in blood pressure are conventionally attributed to an increase in cardiac output and an inappropriately high systemic vascular resistance. 1 We have demonstrated that arterial stiffening with age is matched by ventricular systolic stiffening, indexed by the end-systolic pressure-volume relation (ie, left ventricular end-systolic elastance, E es ). 7 The two effects contribute to elevating systolic blood pressure (SBP) sensitivity to acutely altered chamber filling 7 and might explain the enhanced pressure lability with diuretics and postural shifts in the elderly. Although E es implies the sensitivity of SBP to acute volume reduction, it is unknown whether E es also predicts changes in SBP with long-term volume change. On the other hand, increased arterial stiffness as a hemodynamic overload with consequential and parallel cardiac and vascular adapta-