Short-term reproducibility of nocturnal non-dipping pattern in recently diagnosed essential hypertensives.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate in a selected population of patients with a recently diagnosed essential hypertension the short-term intrasubject variability of diurnal changes in blood pressure (BP).


METHODS
Two hundred and eight consecutive, recently diagnosed, never treated essential hypertensives (119 men, 89 women, 46 +/- 12 years) underwent 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) twice within 3 weeks. Dipping pattern was defined as a reduction in average systolic and diastolic BP at night greater than 10% compared to average daytime values.


RESULTS
177 subjects (85%) showed no change in their diurnal variations in BP. Of the 159 subjects who had a dipping pattern on first ABPM, 134 (90.6%) confirmed this type of profile on the second ABPM, while 15 (9.4%) showed a non-dipping pattern. Of the 59 subjects who had a non-dipping pattern on the first ABPM, 43 (72.2%) confirmed their initial profile on the second ABPM, while 16 (28.8%) did not.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings indicate that short-term reproducibility of diurnal changes in BP in early phases of untreated essential hypertension, characterized by a large prevalence of dipping pattern, is overall satisfactory. However, our study underlines that also in this particularly selected population of hypertensives the definition of non-dipping status on the basis of a single ABPM remains unreliable in about one-third of patients.
Cuspidi
C
C
Istituto di Clinica Medica Generale e Terapia Medica, Università di Milano, Ospedale Maggiore IRCCS, Italy. dhipertensione@libero.it
Macca
G
G
Michev
I
I
Salerno
M
M
Fusi
V
V
Severgnini
B
B
Corti
C
C
Meani
S
S
Valerio
C
C
Magrini
F
F
Zanchetti
A
A
D000328:Adult; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D003971:Diastole; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013599:Systole; D013997:Time Factors