[Arterial mean pressure and pulse pressure in young hypertensive patients].

Background And Objective: Evidence shows that pulse pressure (PP) is very useful when assessing the hypertensive patient and this has led to a lower use of mean arterial pressure (MAP). We intended to demonstrate that MAP should be better than PP in young hypertensive patients.

Subjects And Method: Cross-sectional study in 70 white males with ages among 16-40 years, distributed in two groups of 35 individuals labelled as control group or hypertensive patients, who were assessed by echocardiography.

Results: PP was similar (36.37 +/- 7.90 mmHg vs. 36.67 +/- 9.41 mmHg, p = 0.8851) in both control and hypertensive groups, as well as the arterial compliance (2.22 +/- 0.62 ml/mmHg vs. 2.41 +/- 0.77 ml/mmHg, p = .2555) and the aortic stiffness index (0.88 +/- 0.23 vs. 0.91 +/- 0.33, P = .6591). MAP (94.85 +/- 8.68 mmHg vs. 115.11 +/- 10.01 mmHg, P < .001) and total peripheral resistance index (TPRI) [2681.42 +/- 602.31 dinas.s.cm-5/m2 vs. 3120.68 +/- 741.74 dinas.s.cm-5/m2, p = .0066] were higher in hypertensive patients.

Conclusions: In our cross-sectional assessment in young hypertensive patients, MAP and its determiner (TPRI) were modified, with no important changes in the PP or its determiners.