[The relationship between office and ambulatory blood pressure in elderly patients in a non-academic setting]

We investigated the relationship between clinic blood pressure (BP) and ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in 297 elderly patients who underwent 24 hour ABP monitoring as a non-academic clinical references. Among 107 cases who were normotensive in office BP measurements, 33 cases (30.8%) proved to be hypertensive with more than 140 mmHg in ambulatory systolic BP. Those patients should be referred to as home hypertension or white coat normotension. On the other hand, among 187 patients who were hypertensive in the clinic, 78 cases (41.7%) turned out to be white coat hypertension with an ambulatory daytime systolic BP of less than 140 mmHg. Ambulatory systolic BP in white coat hypertension was comparable with that in the non-hypertensive group although their BP in the clinic was significantly higher than the latter (p < 0.02). Ambulatory systolic BP in the home hypertension group was significantly higher than that in the normotension but was comparable with that in true hypertension. The number of the antihypertensive drugs prescribed in the white coat hypertensive group tended to be greater than that in other groups although that in the home hypertensive group was similar to the other groups. The incidence of cerebro vascular disease in each group was similar.