Hypertension and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.

Abstract

Advancing technology will develop lighter, less expensive, more compatible, and more reliable ambulatory blood pressure recording devices, which will result in an increased use of the procedure in clinical practice. Future longitudinal prospective studies of normotensive and hypertensive subjects may authenticate the relationship between ambulatory blood pressure values and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, thus enabling clinicians to generate guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension. Until that happens, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring can provide meaningful supplemental information that overcomes the limitations of office blood pressure. In addition, various cardiovascular disorders may only be evaluated by using ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. Finally, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is valuable in determining the efficacy of antihypertensive medications and improving the research trials of these drugs.