In this interesting prospective study, Boggia et al. examined the ability of day time and night time ambulatory blood pressure measures to predict cardiovascular outcomes. The study looked at 7,500 subjects involved in prospective population studies in Denmark, Belgium, Japan, Sweden, Uruguay, and China, with a mean follow up of 9.6 years. The authors found that, contrary to accepted opinion, day time blood pressure adjusted for night time blood pressure predicted fatal as well as non-fatal cardiovascular events. The exception was patients treated with antihypertensive drugs, which probably reduced blood pressure during the day but not at night. These results provide further evidence that measuring ambulatory blood pressure during a complete 24 hour period is clinically relevant.
Documentation centre