Impact on Hypertension Reclassification by Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) according to the V Brazilian Guidelines on ABPM

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Fundação Universitária de Cardiologia do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS - Brazil

Mailing Address

Keywords: Hypertension; Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory / methods, Practice Guidelines as Topic.

Dear Editor,

We would like to draw attention to the importance to publish the manuscript Impact on Hypertension Reclassification by Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) according to the V Brazilian Guidelines on ABPM, which addresses the subject of making decisions regarding the thresholds of normality of blood pressure¹. We have found that the population studied presents similarities relating to the sample of patients receiving antihypertensive treatment, in keeping with the database of IDACO². However, notwithstanding the fact that three out of four cities in this database are European cities, the guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) keep as thresholds of blood pressure, to define hypertension by ABPM of 24 hours, the amounts of 125 to 130 mmHg, for systolic blood pressure, and 80 mmHg for diastolic blood pressure³. On account of that, we kindly request that the authors express their opinions about two issues: firstly, the applicability and importance of these more aggressive thresholds for hypertensive patients under treatment and, secondly, we wonder if the authors have diagnostic accuracy data for this sample regarding the conventional measurements of blood pressure and the consequent prevalence of the white-coat effect and masked hypertension.

References

• 1. Sociedade Brasileira de Cardiologia, Sociedade Brasileira de Hipertensão, Sociedade Brasileira de Nefrologia. V Diretrizes Brasileiras de Monitorização Ambulatorial da Pressão Arterial (MAPA) e III Diretrizes Brasileiras de Monitorização Residencial de Pressão Arterial (MRPA). Arq Bras Cardiol. 2011;97(3 supl.3):1-24.
• 2. Kikuya M, Hansen TW, Thijs L, Björklund-Bodegård K, Kuznetsova T, Ohkubo T, et al: IDACO investigators. Diagnostic thresholds for ambulatory blood pressure monitoring based on 10-year cardiovascular risk. Blood Press Monit. 2007;12(6):393-5.
• 3. Perk J, De Backer G, Gohlke H, Graham I, Reiner Z, Verschuren M, et al; European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation (EACPR); ESC Committee for Practice Guidelines (CPG). European Guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice (version 2012). The Fifth Joint Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and Other Societies on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Clinical Practice (constituted by representatives of nine societies and by invited experts. Eur Heart J. 2012;33(13):1635-1701.

Impact on hypertension reclassification by ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) according to the V Brazilian guidelines on ABPM

Guilherme Brasil Grezzana; Airton Tetelbon Stein; Lúcia Campos Pellanda

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  05 Nov 2013
• Date of issue
  Oct 2013