Fiorese Coimbra KT, et al. - In this prospective, nonblinded, interventional study conducted at 3 ICUs in two teaching hospitals, researchers investigated if microcirculatory and systemic hemodynamic variables were altered by an increase in mean arterial pressure in patients with septic shock and previous systemic arterial hypertension vs patients without arterial hypertension (control). This study included 40 patients (20 in each group). Both groups demonstrated a significant rise in cardiac index and a slight but significant attenuation in lactate following the increase in mean arterial pressure. Improved density and flow in small vessels of sublingual microcirculation was observed in relation to increasing mean arterial pressure with noradrenaline in septic shock patients. However, patients with previous arterial hypertension as well as those without arterial hypertension, both, exhibited this improvement.