Automated blood pressure monitoring. Should it be used routinely in managing hypertension?
Twenty-four-hour automated blood pressure measurements are representative of and more reliable than casual office blood pressure measurements; they also are more closely correlated with evidence of target-organ damage caused by hypertension and may have better diagnostic specificity. Nevertheless, broad use of automated monitoring in the routine evaluation and management of hypertension has been discouraged because of the lack of prospective epidemiologic studies linking automated measurements to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, the inability to define a normal range for such measurements, and the cost of the monitoring. However, if it is accepted that conventions established for casual office blood pressure measurements are applicable to data obtained by automated methods, then routine use of automated monitoring is justified, since automated monitoring has better diagnostic capabilities that offset much of its cost.
Bottini
P B
PB
Section of Hypertension and Vascular Diseases, Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, Augusta 30912-3150.
Prisant
L M
LM
Carr
A A
AA
D000553:Ambulatory Care; D001794:Blood Pressure; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination / Q000379:methods*; D015924:Blood Pressure Monitors; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D012016:Reference Values