Noninvasive ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in patients with recently detected systemic hypertension.
Noninvasive ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and Doppler echocardiography were used in a recent study evaluating persons aged 18 to 50 years who were initially found to have mild hypertension by casual blood pressure determination. Ambulatory blood pressure recordings were performed on a day of usual activity in 54 subjects; a subgroup of 24 patients had evaluation of left ventricular dimensions and diastolic filling patterns by Doppler echocardiography. Average ambulatory systolic pressures of 42% of subjects were greater than or equal to 130 mm Hg. Only 35% had average diastolic pressures greater than or equal to 85 mm Hg, and 57% had either systolic or diastolic pressures greater than or equal to 130/85 mm Hg. Correlation between casual and ambulatory pressures was not significant. No subject had left ventricular hypertrophy determined by echocardiography. Abnormal left ventricular diastolic filling was noted in 38% of those patients with average ambulatory pressures greater than or equal to 130/85 mm Hg, but in no patients with average pressures less than 130/85 mm Hg (p less than 0.05). These results suggest that ambulatory blood pressure monitoring may be a specific method for detecting those patients with mild hypertension who may have early and potentially reversible cardiac abnormalities.
Hypertension Division, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, City University of New York, New York 10029.
R A
RA
Phillips
M E
ME
Goldman
H B
HB
Eison
L R
LR
Krakoff
D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination; D015150:Echocardiography, Doppler; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic