Self-measurement of blood pressure in clinical trials and therapeutic applications

Self-measurement of blood pressure (SMBP) is increasingly used to assess bl ood pressure outside the medical setting, A prerequisite for the wide use o f SMBP is the availability of validated devices providing reliable readings when they are handled by patients, This is the case today with a number of fully automated oscillometric apparatuses, A major advantage of SMBP is th e great number of readings, which is linked with high reproducibility, Give n these advantages, one of the major indications for SMBP is the need for e valuation of antihypertensive treatment, either for individual patients in everyday practice or in clinical trials intended to characterize the effect s of blood-pressure-lowering medications, In fact, SMBP is particularly hel pful for evaluating resistant hypertension and detecting white-coat effect in patients exhibiting high office blood pressure under antihypertensive th erapy, SMBP might also motivate the patient and improve his or her adherenc e to long-term treatment. Moreover, SMBP can be used as a sensitive techniq ue for evaluating the effect of antihypertensive drugs in clinical trials; it increases the power of comparative trials, allowing one to study fewer p atients or to detect smaller differences in blood pressure than would be po ssible with the office measurement, Therefore, SMBP can be regarded as a va luable technique for the follow-up of treated patients as well as for the a ssessment of antihypertensive drugs in clinical trials, (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.