The clinical utility of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in a multispecialty clinic setting.
Since 1988, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) as an outpatient assessment of patients with high blood pressure has been offered through the Department of Hypertension and Nephrology at the Marshfield Clinic. This article summarizes that experience from a review of 318 patients who have undergone 24 h ABPM. The purpose of the review was to assess the reasons for ordering the ABPM, the use of those results, and the apparent value to the ordering clinician in the light of established guidelines and information in the literature on clinical use. The justification for at least 90% of requests for ABPM specified reasons that may be regarded as accepted indications for the procedure. In some 49% of cases one or more changes in patient management were recommended on the basis of ABPM results. These results indicate that ABPM can be of practical value in the management of hypertension. Furthermore, this study suggests that clinicians use this tool quite appropriately.
Dart
RA
Marshfield Clinic, Department of Hypertension and Nephrology, Marshfield, WI, USA.
Berg
RL