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Updated: Mar 16, 2026
Quantitative Autonomic Testing
Published on: July 19, 2011
Threshold for diagnosing hypertension by automated office blood pressure using random sample population data
Peter Wohlfahrt1, Renata Cífková, Narine Movsisyan
1aInternational Clinical Research Center, St. Anne's University Hospital, Brno bCenter for Cardiovascular Prevention of the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and Thomayer Hospital cLaboratory for Atherosclerosis Research, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague dDepartment of Laboratory Methods, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic eDivision of Cardiovascular Diseases, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
Automated office blood pressure (AOBP) of 131/85 mmHg is equivalent to the traditional 140/90 mmHg manual reading for hypertension diagnosis. This new threshold may improve accuracy in identifying hypertension, but requires further outcome-based studies for confirmation.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Hypertension Research
- Clinical Measurement
Background:
- Manual office blood pressure (BP) is the standard for hypertension diagnosis but is prone to measurement errors and the white-coat effect.
- Automated office BP (AOBP) measurement offers a potential solution by minimizing errors through automated readings.
- Establishing a reliable AOBP threshold is crucial for its clinical adoption in hypertension diagnosis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the automated office blood pressure (AOBP) threshold that corresponds to the conventional manual office BP threshold of 140/90 mmHg.
- To evaluate the diagnostic implications of this AOBP threshold concerning white-coat and masked hypertension.
Main Methods:
- A large-scale random population sample of 2145 participants (aged 25-64) was recruited from Brno.
- Blood pressure was measured using both manual mercury and automated office sphygmomanometers.
- Polynomial regression analysis was employed to identify the equivalent AOBP threshold.
Main Results:
- Manual BP readings were consistently higher than automated office BP (SBP mean difference 6.39 mmHg, DBP mean difference 2.50 mmHg).
- An AOBP threshold of 131/85 mmHg was found to correspond to a manual BP of 140/90 mmHg.
- This AOBP threshold identified significant proportions of white-coat hypertension (24%), masked hypertension (10%), and masked uncontrolled hypertension (11%).
Conclusions:
- An automated office blood pressure threshold of 131/85 mmHg is proposed as equivalent to the 140/90 mmHg manual reading for hypertension diagnosis.
- This AOBP threshold may enhance the accuracy of hypertension diagnosis in clinical practice.
- Further outcome-driven studies are necessary to validate this proposed AOBP threshold for hypertension management.
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