Daytime ambulatory blood pressure correlates strongly with the echocardiographic diameter of aortic coarctation.
OBJECTIVE
To relate the echocardiographic aortic arch-diameter to ambulatory and clinic blood pressure (BP) in patients with aortic coarctation.


METHODS
Eighteen adult patients (50% men) were recruited from the coarctation registry of the Linkoping Heart Centre. Biplane-trans-oesophageal echocardiography (TEE) was performed with Acuson XP 128/10, ambulatory BP was recorded with Spacelab models 90202/90205.


RESULTS
Systolic clinic and ambulatory BP levels were higher in patients than in the 36 controls (clinic BP: 146 +/- 25 mmHg vs 119 +/- 10 mmHg, p = 0.0009, ambulatory BP: 140 +/- 18 mmHg vs 124 +/- 11 mmHg, p = 0.009). The differences in diastolic BP levels were less obvious (clinic BP: 87 +/- 16 mmHg vs 76 +/- 8 mmHg, p = 0.02, ambulatory BP: 84 +/- 13 mmHg vs 77 +/- 9 mmHg, p = 0.052). Daytime ambulatory BP was more strongly related than clinic BP to the coarctation diameter (AD) (systolic BP r= -0.73, p = 0.0006 and r = -0.61, p = 0.007, respectively). In surgically corrected patients (n = 14) only the correlations between ambulatory systolic daytime (r = -0.61, p = 0.02) and night-time (r = -0.58, p = 0.03) BP to AD was statistically significant.


CONCLUSIONS
Ambulatory BP correlates strongly with aortic coarctation measured by TEE and would thus be the preferred technique for evaluating BP in this patient category.
Engvall
J
J
Department of Medicine and Care, Linkoping University, Sweden.
Nyström
F
F
D000328:Adult; D001017:Aortic Coarctation / Q000150:complications* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D015150:Echocardiography, Doppler; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged