Does day-of-surgery blood pressure accurately reflect baseline ambulatory blood pressure in surgical patients?
Day-of-surgery blood pressure often overestimates baseline blood pressure in patients presenting with hypertension, suggesting prehospitalization BPs should be referenced to avoid misdiagnosis of severe hypertension.
For most patients whose 1st OR-BP is hypertensive, that BP is greater than ambulatory clinic BPs recorded during the preceding 7 months. For most patients with Severe-HTN at 1st OR-BP, day-of-surgery BPs overestimate Baseline-BP and reference to prehospitalization BPs is advisable. When 1st OR-BP is normotensive, that BP usually reflects Baseline-BP.
Drummond et al. (Tue,) studied this question.