[Chronobiological standards of 24-hour arterial blood pressure validated by bayesian criteria]

The monodiagnosis of hypertension via ambulatory (A) blood pressure (BP) monitoring (M) is erroneous by definition. Its use has to be substituted by the chronodiagnosis. Because of the lack of an international standardization, the BP chronobiologic reference limits have to be computed on a small sample size. For this compilation, it is, however, unavoidable the recruitment of normotensive subjects using the WHO's fixed limits. These chronobiologic standards are by principle contaminated by false negatives and need a bayesian validation. Such a depuration has been made by reclassifying each subject using the BP time-qualified standards. A secondary sample was constituted on the true normotensive reclassified. This sample provided the a posteriori reference standards for BP. The bayesian chronobiologic reference standards seem to be the limits with which the chronodiagnosis of hypertension can be suitably done via ABPM.