title: Short-term reproducibility of nocturnal non-dipping pattern in recently diagnosed essential hypertensives.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Clinica Medica Generale e Terapia Medica, Università di Milano, Ospedale Maggiore IRCCS, Italy. dhipertensione@libero.it
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cuspidi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Macca
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Michev
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Salerno
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Fusi
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Severgnini
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Corti
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Meani
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Valerio
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Magrini
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zanchetti
mesh_terms: 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