• B Esayag-Tendler and W B White.
• Department of Medicine, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington.
• Cleve Clin J Med. 1993 Jul 1;60(4):278-83.

BackgroundThe first fully automatic portable invasive blood pressure recorder was developed 30 years ago. Today, portable noninvasive ambulatory blood pressure devices are capable of measuring blood pressure intermittently for periods of 24 to 48 hours.ObjectiveTo discuss the utility of automatic ambulatory blood pressure recording in assessing antihypertensive therapy.SummaryAmbulatory blood pressure monitoring is helpful in assessing the pharmacodynamics and the clinical efficacy of antihypertensive drugs. It is superior to office blood pressure measurement in predicting hypertensive end-organ disease. In clinical trials, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring permits a more varied population to enter a study, the number of subjects required is often reduced, and a placebo control group may be unnecessary.ConclusionsThe various methods of analyzing ambulatory blood pressure data should be used in a complementary fashion to evaluate antihypertensive drug therapy. We believe that this technique will soon become much more commonly used for hypertension management.

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