[Exercise testing and blood pressure]

Cardiac monitoring with ECG and blood pressure recording is routinely performed during a stress test and blood pressure response is an important part of its interpretation. Unfortunately, the latter is not straightforward, partly because of the inconsistent definition of a pathologic blood pressure response, the different populations included in the studies and divergent test modalities. An exaggerated blood pressure response in normotensive subjects without coronary heart disease is associated with an increased risk of future arterial hypertension, whereas in patients with known or suspected coronary heart disease, prognosis is not worse than in patients with normal blood pressure response. By contrast, exercise induced hypotension, particularly in patients with coronary artery disease indicates an increased risk for cardiac events and should be investigated further, usually by performing coronary angiography.