EVALUATION OF NOCTURNAL BLOOD-PRESSURE BY THE MULTI-P ANALYSIS OF 24-HOUR AMBULATORY MONITORING

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is utilized to identify '' dippers'' and ''non dippers'' among hypertensives. Such a classificati on has either prognostic or therapeutical implications. Rigid definiti ons of nocturnal time period (e.g., from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.) may not co rrespond to actual sleep patterns, and thus may lead to faulty interpr etations. In our study, we analyzed 32 ABPM; diurnal and nocturnal blo od pressure (BP) were assessed by three different ways: the patients' diary method; fixed intervals utilized by Spacelabs software; Multi-P Analysis (MPA) of the data. MPA method proved to be effective to evalu ate nocturnal BP values. In comparison with Spacelabs program, it seem s to define more precisely nocturnal BP, which differs less from the r eal sleep-time values. This modifies the percentage of dippers, which is greater than that obtained by Spacelabs program and equal to that c alculated by the patients reported nocturnal sleep intervals. These re sults suggest that MPA method may be a contribution to a better defini tion of nocturnal BP.