[Reproducibility of blood pressure measurements in hypertensives during and after ergometry].

On repeated measurement hypertensives have greater swings in resting blood pressure than those with normal pressures. In 20 untreated hypertensives (WHO stage I), average age 35.8 years, blood pressures were measured during and after ergometry (50-100 Watt) to see whether there were any variations during the day and whether repeat measurements were affected by adaptation. Blood pressure measurements repeated three times during ergometry, gave good agreement above 1 Watt/kg body weight, with a mean of 203/116 mm Hg at 8 a.m., 200/114 mm Hg at 10 a.m. and 203/113 mm Hg at 4 p.m., although resting blood pressures at times differed significantly. Even in patients with labile or borderline hypertension, blood pressure measurement during and after ergometry without exception made it possible to assign them to the hypertensive range, which would not have been possible or only to a limited extent at rest. Measurement of blood pressure during and after standardised ergometry is thus superior to resting blood pressure measurements in the identification of hypertensives.