title: Office versus Ambulatory (OvA) recording of blood pressure, a European multicenter study: inclusion and early follow-up characteristics.
abstract: Only a few large prospective trials intended to address the question of whether management of hypertensive patients should be guided by office (OBP) or ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) and whether fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events are better predicted by ABP than they are by OBP are going on. Office versus Ambulatory (OvA) recording of blood pressure, a European multicenter study, is a multicenter prospective, 10 000 patient-years follow-up study of treated essential hypertension designed to correlate blood pressure to prognosis, blood pressure being defined either by ABP or OBP. Early in 1997, inclusion was stopped (n = 2224 inclusions, 48.3% women, aged 56.8 +/- 13.1 years) because the required number had been exceeded. Inclusion data reveal that OBP (152.9 +/-21.2/92.7 +/- 10.9 mmHg) of a large portion of patients remains high, although patients had been treated for at least 3 months with antihypertensive drugs. Mean 24 h ABP averaged 133.3 +/-15.9/84.0 +/-11.0 mmHg and 24 h blood pressure and heart rate profiles, large differences in drug treatment, apparatus, type of patients, and patients' activities notwithstanding, were like those expected from well-controlled studies. Risk profile was not particularly high. Evolution of OBP, ABP and electrocardiographic and echocardiographic indices of left ventricular hypertrophy indicate that reeductions of the OBP, ABP, and electrocardiographic indices of left ventricular hypertrophy had occurred after 12 months, after 24 months follow-up there was no longer any further change for most parameters. In conclusion, analysis of inclusion and preliminary follow-up data indicates that the OvA study is running well and that it is likely that final analysis of the data and events from the OvA study will lead to an answer to the study question of whether ABP monitoring is better suited than is OBP to deal with management of the treated hypertensive patient.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology-Hypertension, University Hospital, De Pintelaan 185, Gent, Belgium.
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Clement
authors.lastname: De Buyzere M