[Reproducibility of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring]

Short-term blood pressure variability has been studied extensively with monitoring techniques. To assess whether or not and to what extent average 24-hour blood pressure varies when repeatedly recorded, 12 mild to moderate hypertensive subjects underwent 3 non-invasive blood pressure monitorings at monthly intervals. When the average 24-hour blood pressure of the whole group was evaluated no substantial differences were found between the 3 recordings, even though slightly lower blood pressure values were recorded at the first monitoring. However, when the within-period comparison was studied in the single patients, remarkable discrepancies of up to 20.9/15.8 mmHg were detected. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure variations greater than or equal to 5 mmHg were recorded in 58% of the subjects. These differences were unrelated to the number of faulty readings. Casual blood pressure varied even to a greater extent between the first and the subsequent visits; no correlation was found between casual and 24-hour blood pressure variations. The results of the present study indicate that ambulatory blood pressure may vary even to a great extent when repeatedly recorded. This finding entails important clinical implications, as the evaluation of the hypertensive patient is usually made with a single blood pressure monitoring.