[Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring]

Abstract

During the last decades non-invasive 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring has evolved from a research tool of limited clinical use into an important method for stratifying cardiovascular risk and guiding therapeutic decisions. Until recently, clinical use of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring focused on identifying patients with white-coat hypertension, but accumulated evidence now points to its greater prognostic significance in determining risk for target-organ damage compared with that of office blood pressure measurements. Ambulatory measurement of blood pressure using automated devices has also demonstrated benefit in other indications, such as treatment resistance and borderline hypertension, or in hypertension during pregnancy. Future directions for hypertension research and treatment will need to consider the circadian cycle of blood pressure, the effect of treatment on blood pressure variability, and the magnitude of blood pressure changes in daily life.