¹Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Federico II University, Naples, Italy

Correspondence: A.L. Ferrara, MD, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Federico II University, Via S. Pansini, 5, 80131, Naples, Italy, e-mail: ferrara@unina.it

Received 23 September 1997; Revised  0000; Accepted 12 June 1998.

Abstract

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring allows a better understanding of blood pressure fluctuations over 24 h than simple clinic measurements. In this way the diagnosis of "white coat" versus "sustained" hypertension and that of "dipper" (patient with blood pressure fall during nighttime > 10% of daytime levels) versus "nondipper" status were made possible. This pilot study has been undertaken to investigate whether patients with recently discovered, never-treated, mild, sustained hypertension have cardiovascular abnormalities according to their dipper/nondipper status. Patients with long-standing (n = 123) and newly discovered (n = 56) sustained hypertension were classified according to their nighttime blood pressure fall, and compared with normotensive controls. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring was performed noninvasively. Parameters of left ventricular structure, cardiac systolic and diastolic function, and carotid anatomy were determined noninvasively by echographic methods. Significant increases in parameters of cardiac structure as well as abnormalities in diastolic function were observed in patients with long-standing hypertension, regardless of their dipper status. In the group with newly discovered hypertension, left atrium (3.4 0.3, 3.7 0.5, 3.2 0.4 cm in dippers, nondippers, and controls, respectively), end-diastolic diameter index (2.9 0.3, 3.0 0.2, 2.8 0.2 cm/m), and atrial filling fraction (0.50 0.07, 0.52 0.05, 0.42 0.04) were significantly altered only in the nondipper subgroup, in comparison with controls. Significant changes in cardiac structure and diastolic function were observed in nondipper patients with recently discovered hypertension, who, at variance with dippers, show changes similar to those in patients with long-standing hypertension. Hypertensives with the observed abnormalities may benefit from active antihypertensive treatment, which appears, therefore, justified even in an early phase of mild hypertension, in terms of potential reduction of end-organ complications as well as cost-effectiveness.