title: [The decision to treat moderate hypertension: repetition of office visits or ambulatory monitoring of arterial pressure?].
abstract: World Health Organization (WHO) recommends antihypertensive therapy for mild to moderate hypertensive patients after 3 or more visits. We tested the hypothesis that an ambulatory blood pressure recording could also help to decide which patient need therapy. Blood pressure was measured in 89 essential, uncomplicated, hypertensive patients (diastolic (DBP): 90-110 mmHg, mean age: 41 +/- 13 years), with a mercury sphygmomanometer at 3 visits and with an ambulatory blood pressure recorder (Spacelabs) during 12 hours. According to WHO recommendations, patients were classified "WHO+" if they need a treatment (n = 44) and "WHO-" if they did not. The mean ambulatory DBP of each subject was compared to the arbitrary limit defined as the mean +2 standard deviations of the ambulatory DBP of a population of normotensive subjects in the same decade and same sex: patients with ambulatory DBP above this limit were defined "AMB+" (n = 27), the others were "AMB-". Ten patients were "WHO- AMB+" and 24 were "WHO+ AMB-". These discordances were independent of age, body weight, duration of hypertension, variability of ambulatory systolic and diastolic blood pressure defined by the standard deviation. By contrast, the difference between the measurements of the simultaneous blood pressure measurements performed with the two methods (mercury sphyngmomanometer and Spacelabs) 2 times by each patient could explain in part these discrepancies. The Spacelabs underestimates DBP measured with the mercury sphyngmomanometer in patients "AMB-" but not in patient "AMB+".(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
mesh_terms: D001795:Blood Pressure Determination; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D009819:Office Visits; D014944:World Health Organization
vernacular_title: La décision de traiter l'hypertendu modéré: répétition des consultations ou enregistrement ambulatoire de pression artérielle?