Prediction of coronary and cerebrovascular morbidity and mortality by direct continuous ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in essential hypertension

Background-The goal of this study was to assess the prognostic value of amb ulatory versus clinic blood pressure measurement and to relate cardiovascul ar risk to ambulatory systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels. Methods and Results-The study population consisted of 688 patients 51+/-11 years of age who had undergone pretreatment 24-hour intra-arterial ambulato ry blood pressure monitoring on the basis of elevated clinic blood pressure . A total of 157 first events were recorded during a 9.2+/-4.1-year follow- up period. The predictive value of a regression model containing age, sex, race, body mass index, smoking, diabetes mellitus, fasting cholesterol leve l, and previous history of cardiovascular disease was significantly improve d by the addition of any ambulatory systolic or diastolic blood pressure pa rameter (whether 24-hour, daytime, or nighttime mean) or pulse pressure, wh ereas inclusion of baseline clinic blood pressure variables did not enhance the prediction of events. The most predictive models contained the ambulat ory systolic blood pressure parameters. In the model containing 24-hour mea n ambulatory systolic blood pressure (P=0.001), age (P<0.001), male sex (P< 0.001), South Asian origin (P=0.008), diabetes mellitus (P=0.05), and previ ous cardiovascular disease (P<0.001) were additional independent predictors of events. Whereas 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure was linearly related to the incidence of both coronary and cerebrovascular events, 24-h our ambulatory diastolic blood pressure exhibited a positive linear relatio nship with cerebrovascular events but a curvilinear relationship with coron ary events. Conclusions-Ambulatory blood pressure is superior to clinic measurement for the assessment of cardiovascular risk; there is no reduction in coronary r isk at lower levels of ambulatory diastolic blood pressure.