Associations of the nocturnal blood pressure fall and morning surge with cardiovascular events and mortality in individuals with resistant hypertension.

Objective: The prognostic importance of the nocturnal blood pressure (BP) fall and early-morning surge were scarcely investigated in patients with resistant hypertension (RHT). We investigated them in a prospective cohort of 1726 RHT individuals.

Methods: The nocturnal fall and morning surge were calculated from the baseline ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) and also as mean cumulative values using all ABPMs performed during follow-up. Dipping patterns (normal, extreme, reduced, and reverse) were defined by classic cut-off values of the night-to-day ratio, while MS (difference between early-morning and night-time BP) was categorized into quartiles and at the extremes of its distribution (5th, 10th, 90th, and 95th percentiles). The primary outcomes were total cardiovascular events (CVEs), major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs), all-cause and cardiovascular mortalities. Multivariate Cox analyses examined the associations between nocturnal BP fall and morning surge and outcomes.

Results: Over a median follow-up of 8.3 years, 417 CVEs occurred (358 MACEs), and 391 individuals died (233 cardiovascular deaths). Reduced and reverse dipping patterns were significant predictors of CVEs and MACEs, with hazard ratios between 1.6 and 2.5, whereas extreme dipping was a protective factor in younger individuals (hazard ratios 0.3--0.4) but a hazardous factor in elderly (hazard ratios 3.7--5.0) and in individuals with previous cardiovascular diseases (hazard ratios 2.6--4.4). No morning surge parameter was predictive of any outcome in fully adjusted analyses.

Conclusion: Abnormal dipping patterns but not the early-morning BP surge, were important prognostic markers for future cardiovascular morbidity in RHT patients. The prognosis of extreme dippers depended on age and the presence of cardiovascular diseases.