title: Screening for pseudohypertension. A quantitative, noninvasive approach.
abstract: We studied 36 hypertensive men, aged 60 years or older, and compared direct intra-arterial diastolic blood pressure (BP) measurements, indirect cuff mercury sphygmomanometer measurements, and automatic infrasonic recorder (IR) measurements. We used a receiver operating characteristic curve to determine whether a difference between the cuff and IR diastolic BP could identify patients likely to have pseudo-hypertension (cuff-intra-arterial diastolic BP difference of 10 mm Hg or greater). We found that a cuff-IR difference of 4 mm Hg could identify the majority of patients with pseudo-hypertension (sensitivity, 93%; specificity, 64%; positive predictive value, 62%; negative predictive value, 93%). We concluded that the IR is an accurate, quantitative, noninvasive substitute for intra-arterial measurements and may be the preferred technique for screening and monitoring of blood pressure in elderly hypertensive patients.
authors.affiliation: Ambulatory Care Service, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Hla
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Feussner
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D003951:Diagnostic Errors; D003971:Diastole; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged