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(Circulation. 2007;115:2091-2093.)
© 2007 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Ambulatory Blood Pressure for Cardiovascular Risk Stratification

Paolo Verdecchia, MD; Fabio Angeli, MD; Claudio Cavallini, MD

From Struttura Complessa di Cardiologia, Unità di Ricerca Clinica–Cardiologia Preventiva, Ospedale S. Maria della Misericordia, Perugia, Italy.

Correspondence to Paolo Verdecchia, MD, FAHA, FACC, Struttura Complessa di Cardiologia, Unità di Ricerca Clinica–Cardiologia Preventiva, Ospedale S. Maria della Misericordia, Piazzale G. Menghini, 06132 Perugia, Italy. E-mail verdec@tin.it

Key Words: Editorials • blood pressure • circadian rhythm • diagnosis • hypertension • prevention • prognosis

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 
Ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring is increasingly recognized as a valuable tool to refine prediction of cardiovascular risk related to blood pressure (BP).¹ After the first landmark study published by Perloff and colleagues 24 years ago,² several longitudinal event-based studies provided unequivocal evidence of an independent association between ABP and risk of cardiovascular disease. Although experimental procedures and statistical analyses varied from study to study, ABP generally improved cardiovascular risk stratification over and beyond traditional risk factors, including clinic BP.³ The Table, obtained through an electronic search of literature using the terms "ambulatory blood pressure" and "prognosis," shows a list of longitudinal event-based studies performed by independent groups. It is worth noting that the list of available studies is longer because each group generally published other analyses of their database. Only the first-appearing or main contribution from each group has been included in the Table.

View this table:   Longitudinal Event-Based Studies From Independent Groups That Addressed the Prognostic Value of ABP

Article p 2145

Three aspects of available investigations deserve special mention. First, the prognostic value of ABP has been examined not only in subjects with clinical diagnosis of hypertension but also in the general population and in a variety of settings, including diabetes mellitus, renal failure, and cerebrovascular disease. Second, subjects could be untreated or treated at the time of ABP monitoring. This point may raise concerns, because drug treatment could exert unpredictable effects on 24-hour ABP profile and, consequently, interpretation and applicability of results. Third, although a continuous relation . . . [Full Text of this Article]