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(Hypertension. 1997;29:22.)
© 1997 American Heart Association, Inc.

Research Articles (Issue 1, Part 1)

Prediction of Cardiac Structure and Function by Repeated Clinic and Ambulatory Blood Pressure

Robert H. Fagard; Jan A. Staessen; Lutgarde Thijs

the Hypertension and Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Unit, Department of Molecular and Cardiovascular Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Leuven KUL (Belgium).

Correspondence to R. Fagard, MD, PhD, UZ Pellenberg, Weligerveld 1, B-3212 Pellenberg, Belgium.

We performed imaging echocardiography, Doppler velocimetry, and repeated clinic and ambulatory blood pressure measurements in 74 hypertensive individuals to clarify why reports differ on the strength of the relationships of left ventricular characteristics with clinic blood pressure, on the superiority of ambulatory over clinic pressure, and on the importance of daytime and nighttime pressures. Clinic pressure was measured five times with an automated device and five times with the conventional technique on 2 different days. The partial correlation coefficients of left ventricular mass and wall thickness with the first automated systolic and diastolic clinic pressures amounted to .38 to .45 (P<.001), improved with increasing numbers of measurements, and reached .56 to .58 for the average of 10 automated pressure determinations. Similar trends were observed for conventional clinic pressures. Average 24-hour pressures were significantly related to mass and wall thickness (partial r=.50 to .61, P<.001) and explained 3% to 6% (systolic) and 5% to 12% (diastolic) of the variance of cardiac structure in addition to the first automated or conventional clinic pressure (P<.05). However, when 10 clinic measurements were averaged, only diastolic 24-hour pressure added information over and above clinic pressure (P<.05); the additional explained variance was larger with regard to the conventional (+4% for mass and +7% for wall thickness) rather than the automated (+3% for wall thickness only) pressures. Mass and wall thickness were more closely related to daytime than nighttime pressures and were not independently related to day-night differences in pressure, except when men and women were considered separately; the results were similar when four different definitions of day and night were applied. Finally, the weak association of left ventricular diastolic function with blood pressure did not improve on repeated clinic or ambulatory blood pressure measurements. In conclusion, increasing numbers of measurements strengthen the relationships of clinic pressure with left ventricular mass and wall thickness and, conversely, diminish the additional predictive power of 24-hour blood pressure. The importance of nighttime pressure and of the nighttime pressure fall does not seem to depend on the definition of day and night but differs in men and women.

Key Words: echocardiography • hypertrophy, heart • blood pressure monitoring

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