Does self-blood pressure monitoring improve the diagnosis of isolated clinic hypertension and assessment of target organ damage in patients without prior cardiovascular events?
Self-blood pressure monitoring is valuable in diagnosing isolated clinic hypertension, which is associated with a relatively frequent occurrence of advanced retinopathy and target organ damage.
BACKGROUND: There are no studies assessing cardiovascular morbidity, morality in patients with isolated clinical hypertension (ICH) with self-blood pressure monitoring (SBPM). OBJECTIVES: To determine the value of SBPM in the diagnosis of ICH. METHODS: Cohort study. New hypertensive and normotensive patients 15-75 years, without cardiovascular events history. VARIABLES: Oriented anamnesis hypertension; blood pressure measurements (BP): clinical BP, SBPM and ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM); evaluation of target organ damage (TOD); electrocardiogram; retinography and microalbuminuria (MA). RESULTS: One hundred and thirty-five patients, 95 hypertensive (62.1% males; mean age 59.08+/-16.8 years), 40 normotensive (37.5% males; mean are 56.32+/-10.22 years). BP measurements (mmHG) in normotensives vs hypertensives: clinical BP, 125.36/76.74 vs 149.81/87.86 mmHg (p0.10); SBPM: 147.895/88.95 vs 128.17/79 (p<0.0001) and ABPM, 141.72/88.22 vs 131.66/80 (p=0.053 for systolic). TOD in SH vs ICH: LVH, 24.6% vs 19.2% (p=0.814); exudates or haemorrhages, 7.7% vs 9.8% (p=0.580). The risk of an occurrence of any TOD in ICH patients is lower for 125/80 (OR=2.5). CONCLUSIONS: VAMPAHICA will provide information about value SBPM in the diagnosis of ICH. Advanced retinopathy is relative frequent in ICH patients. If TOD is accepted as a surrogate endpoint, the diagnostic values of ICH will be probably decreased.
Tuero et al. (2006) studied this question.