Relationship between ambulatory blood pressure and follow-up clinic blood pressure in elderly patients with systolic hypertension.

Background: Patients with elevated clinic blood pressure and normal ambulatory blood pressure have a better prognosis than patients with sustained ambulatory hypertension, and may not have to be treated with antihypertensive drugs. On the contrary, current guidelines emphasize repeated clinic blood pressure measurements for the initiation of antihypertensive therapy.

Objective: To examine the relationship between ambulatory blood pressure at baseline and clinic blood pressure after 6 months of follow-up in untreated hypertensive patients, and the relationships of these pressures with the subsequent incidence of cardiovascular events.

Systolic blood pressure variability as a risk factor for stroke and cardiovascular mortality in the elderly hypertensive population.

Objective: To investigate whether baseline systolic blood pressure variability was a risk factor for stroke, cardiovascular mortality or cardiac events during the Syst-Eur trial.

Design: The Syst-Eur study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, powered to detect differences in stroke rate between participants on active antihypertensive treatment and placebo. Systolic blood pressure variability measurements were made on 744 participants at the start of the trial.

Predictive value of clinic and ambulatory heart rate for mortality in elderly subjects with systolic hypertension.

Objective: To examine the association of clinic and ambulatory heart rate with total, cardiovascular, and noncardiovascular death in a cohort of elderly subjects with isolated systolic hypertension from the Systolic Hypertension in Europe Trial.

Methods: A total of 4682 patients participated, whose untreated blood pressure on conventional measurement at baseline was 160 to 219 mm Hg systolic and lower than 95 mm Hg diastolic. Clinic heart rate was the mean of 6 readings during 3 visits.