title: [Is white-coat hypertension a disease?].
abstract: White-coat hypertension can be defined as a hypertensive reaction in the physician's office in a usually normotensive individual. Several studies have shown that white-coat hypertension may be associated to slight metabolic or echocardiographic abnormalities, putting these individuals between normal subjects and true hypertensives; however, long-term evolution of white-coat hypertensives remains poorly known. The present study tries to solve this question. A retrospective study was performed on 63 individuals with office hypertension but normal ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. After a mean follow-up of 5.4 years, more than half of these subjects have become permanent hypertensives, the majority of them being at this time under hypotensive treatment. White-coat hypertension is probably not a disease but a factor predictive of later permanent hypertension; therefore, such individuals should be submitted to life style changes and to regular blood pressure controls.
authors.affiliation: Service de cardiologie, Hôpital de la Tour, Meyrin, Genève.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bloch
mesh_terms: D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D009819:Office Visits; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies
chemical_list: D000959:Antihypertensive Agents
vernacular_title: L'hypertension de la blouse blanche est-elle une maladie?