Does ambulatory blood pressure monitoring provide prognostic information regarding morbidity risk?
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring provides prognostic value beyond clinic measurements through the assessment of blood pressure level, diurnal variation, and short-term variability.
PROGNOSTIC INFORMATION: Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring provides three kinds of information, all of which might have prognostic significance: blood pressure level, amplitude of diurnal variation and short-term variability. BLOOD PRESSURE LEVEL: Existing data support the hypothesis that patients whose ambulatory blood pressure is low in comparison with clinic blood pressure (white-coat hypertension) have a relatively low risk of morbidity. AMPLITUDE OF DIURNAL RHYTHM OF BLOOD PRESSURE: While there is limited support for the hypothesis that patients with small diurnal variations may carry a higher risk (particularly women), opposing hypotheses are also plausible. SHORT-TERM BLOOD PRESSURE VARIABILITY: It is hypothesized that increased variability will be associated with increased morbidity. Preliminary data from the Cornell prospective study are consistent with this hypothesis.
Pickering et al. (Sat,) studied this question.