Twenty-four-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurement in clinical practice and research: a critical review of a technique in need of implementation

Abstract

This review presents evidence that ambulatory blood pressure measurement (ABPM) should be used more widely in clinical practice and hypertension research. The technique, which should be mandatory in trials of antihypertensive drugs, is not being used in all studies of antihypertensive drug efficacy. ABPM is also being under-used in outcome studies. The failure to implement ABPM in primary care and hypertension research is impeding patient management and scientific advancement. ABPM offers so many advantages in assessing the efficacy of blood pressure (BP)-lowering drugs that it should be mandatory in pharmacological trials. Likewise, the technique provides a means of achieving BP control in clinical practice, which is essential if we are to halt the epidemic of the cardiovascular consequences of hypertension. However, if ABPM is to be implemented for these purposes, certain requirements will need to be fulfilled. These include the availability of accurate, patient-friendly and inexpensive devices; standardization of the presentation and plotting of data with summary statistics for day-to-day practice; provision of comprehensive data analysis for research; an interpretative report to facilitate use in busy clinical practice; a trend report to demonstrate efficacy or otherwise of treatment in clinical practice and online transmission of data to provide immediate real-time data analysis. The reasons why ABPM is not being implemented are reviewed, and proposals are made to make the technique more acceptable.