New treatment could cure one in 20 cases of high blood pressure

Primary aldosteronism can send someone’s blood pressure as high as 200/130, far above the 120/80 level doctors say is healthy. Photograph: SDI Productions/Getty Images

Half a million people in the UK with dangerously high blood pressure – a “silent killer” that causes tens of thousands of deaths a year – could be cured by a new treatment.

Doctors have developed a technique to burn away nodules that lead to a large amount of salt building up in the body, which increases the risk of a stroke or heart attack.