Twenty-four-hour blood pressure monitoring, diurnal blood pressure profile and drug therapy under hospital care conditions.
OBJECTIVES: To elucidate the prevalence of nondipping in 24 h blood pressure monitoring (BPM) during hospital care with respect to antihypertensive drug therapy, diabetes, renal artery stenosis, and inverse diurnal blood pressure profiles. METHODS: Prospective, consecutive categorization of routine 24 h BPM was performed according to nondipping, drug therapy, normotension, severity of hypertension, diabetes, and inverse diurnal profile for 2 years. Retrospective analysis of patients examined by intraarterial renal artery angiography were performed. Nondipping was defined as a drop in night-time blood pressure (2200-0600 h) by less than 10% of the daytime values. Normotension was considered a daytime 24 h BPM value below 135/85 mmHg without antihypertensive therapy. RESULTS: We categorized 2105 24 h BPM protocols for patients of mean age 59 years. Nondipping was found for 26% of the normotensives, 38% of hypertensive patients not being administered medication, and 48% of drug-treated hypertensives. The significant increase in nondipping among patients under drug therapy applied for patients with daytime blood pressures below and above 135/85 mmHg and was thus independent of the severity of hypertension. Among the subgroup of 561 predominantly type 2 diabetic patients the prevalence of nondipping was increased significantly only for those patients who were hypertensive and being administered antihypertensive drugs. Subgroup analysis of patients using intraarterial angiography did not find different prevalences of nondipping for patients with and without renal artery stenosis. Patients with an inverse diurnal blood pressure profile and an increase in night-time blood pressure by more than 5% of the daytime values presented as a high-risk group because of morbidity associated with renal, cardiac, and cerebral disease. CONCLUSION: Nondipping is a common phenomenon among hospital patients. Drug therapy of hypertension should be directed not only towards the daytime blood pressure, but also toward alleviation of night-time hypertension.
Schleiffer
T
Medical Department A, Ludwigshafen Hospital, Academic Teaching Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.
von Nida-Fuhrmann B
Brass
H