[Definition of arterial hypertension]

Recent publication of several consensus by well-known international experts in the field of high blood pressure gives us the opportunity to update the definition of hypertension. For the first time, systolic blood pressure is taken into account to define hypertensives. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring has been recently developed for the evaluation and treatment of hypertensive patients. Due to the absence of world-wide recognized normative data and the lack of prospective studies assessing the superiority of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring over casual blood pressure measurement for the prediction of cardiovascular events, the use of this new technique is to be restricted to a limited number of hypertensive patients.