Ambulatory blood pressure versus casual pressure for the evaluation of target organ damage in hypertension: complications of hypertension.

In 122 patients aged between 14 and 58 years with different degrees of hypertension, mean 24-h ambulatory blood pressure (BP) and casual BP were measured to evaluate the relationship with hypertensive target organ damage. The following results were obtained: (1) In agreement with previous reports, this study found a better relationship between target organ damage and mean ambulatory BP than with causal BP, although the correlation coefficients were similar for both. (2) A higher degree of cardiovascular complications occurred in patients with higher variability in BP. These data emphasize the superiority of BP monitoring over causal BP for the study of hypertension and its complications.