Medium-term reproducibility of stress tests in borderline arterial hypertension

Stress tests are commonly used for an evaluation of blood pressure reactivity, but few data exist in the literature about interindividual variability and intraindividual medium-term reproducibility of blood pressure responses to these tests in borderline hypertension. To this aim we have studied 20 borderline hypertensive patients (age range, 33-59, mean 45). Our data suggest that borderline hypertensive patients cannot be considered a homogeneous group with regard to blood pressure reactivity because they tend to have widely different blood pressure responses to various stress tests. For each test (except for orthostatic stimulation), a fairly good intraindividual reproducibility was found. Considering the poor correlations existing between blood pressure responses to tests for each patient, one test may not be sufficient to characterize blood pressure reactivity to stress in borderline hypertension.