title: [Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is a useful tool for all patients].
abstract: Clinical blood pressure measurement (BP) is an occasional and imperfect way of estimating this biological variable. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is by far the best clinical tool for measuring an individual's blood pressure. Mean values over 24h, through the daytime and at night all make it more possible to predict organic damage and the future development of the disorder. ABPM enables the detection of white-coat hypertension and masked hypertension in both the diagnosis and follow-up of treated patients. Although some of the advantages of ABPM can be reproduced by more automated measurement without the presence of an observer in the clinic or self-measurement at home, there are some other elements of great interest that are unique to ABPM, such as seeing what happens to a patient's BP at night, the night time dipping pattern and short-term variability, all of which relate equally to the patient's prognosis. There is no scientific or clinical justification for denying these advantages, and ABPM should form part of the evaluation and follow-up of practically all hypertensive patients. Rather than continuing unhelpful discussions as to its availability and acceptability, we should concentrate our efforts on ensuring its universal availability and clearly explaining its advantages to both doctors and patients.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Hipertensión, Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Mutua Terrassa, Universidad de Barcelona. Electronic address: adelasierra@mutuaterrassa.cat.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de la Sierra
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D003955:Diagnostic Tests, Routine; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D059468:Masked Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D059466:White Coat Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology
keywords: Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring; Blood pressure variability; Circadian pattern; Hipertensión de bata blanca; Hipertensión enmascarada; Masked hypertension; Monitorización ambulatoria de la presión arterial; Night-time blood pressure; Patrón circadiano; Presión arterial nocturna; Variabilidad de la presión arterial; White-coat hypertension