Associations of office brachial blood pressure, office central blood pressure, and home brachial blood pressure with arterial stiffness.

Accurate blood pressure (BP) measurement is necessary for the evaluation and treatment of hypertension to prevent the progression of subclinical vascular disease, including arterial stiffness. We investigated the associations between brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), a measure of arterial stiffness, and each of office brachial systolic BP (SBP) with and without an observer present (attended or unattended office brachial SBP), attended or unattended office central SBP, and home brachial SBPs (specifically, the means of morning, evening, or morning-evening home brachial SBP) in patients being treated for hypertension. Measurements were performed among 70 adults (mean age, 67.0 ± 9.4 years; women, 51.4%) with a mean attended office brachial SBP of 127.6 ± 14.5 mmHg and mean baPWV of 16.3 ± 2.8 m/s. Univariate analysis showed that higher attended office brachial SBP, morning home brachial SBP, and morning-evening home brachial SBP were each statistically significantly associated with higher baPWV (r = 0.25, P = 0.04; r = 0.37, P = 0.002; and r = 0.32, P = 0.006, respectively). Multiple linear regression analysis with adjustments for traditional cardiovascular risk factors showed that only morning home brachial SBP was statistically significantly associated with baPWV [ß = 0.06, 95% confidence interval (0.01-0.11), P = 0.02). In conclusion, higher morning home brachial SBP - but none of the office-measured SBP values - was associated with arterial stiffness.

Comparison of Brachial Blood Pressure and Central Blood Pressure in Attended, Unattended, and Unattended Standing Situations.

Central systolic blood pressure (cSBP) is an independent predictor of future cardiovascular disease. Unattended brachial SBP (bSBP) can eliminate the white-coat effect. However, unattended cSBP and unattended standing cSBP have never been reported. We aimed to compare bSBP and cSBP in attended, unattended, and unattended standing situations. We also aimed to compare the white-coat effect and unattended orthostatic BP change between bSBP and cSBP. Altogether, 104 hypertensive outpatients were included (mean age: 66.0 ± 9.8 years, 41.3% male, mean body mass index: 25.0 ± 4.5). Attended bSBP/cSBP values were 127.3 ± 15.7/119.2 ± 15.0, unattended bSBP/cSBP values were 122.7 ± 15.3/114.4 ± 15.1, and unattended standing bSBP/cSBP values were 123.6 ± 15.7/114.1 ± 14.8 mmHg (correlation coefficients/coefficients of determination between bSBP and cSBP: 0.971/0.943, 0.970/0.941, and 0.964/0.929, respectively; all p < 0.001). No significant difference was observed in the white-coat effect between bSBP and cSBP (4.6 ± 5.8 vs. 4.8 ± 5.7 mmHg). Although there was no significant difference between unattended sitting SBP and unattended standing SBP in terms of both bSBP and cSBP, a numerically small but significant difference was observed in the unattended orthostatic BP change between bSBP and cSBP (0.9 ± 8.0 vs. -0.3 ± 9.0 mmHg, p = 0.002). In conclusion, significant and strong correlations were observed between bSBP and cSBP in attended, unattended, and unattended standing BP measurements. The white-coat effect on bSBP was equivalent to that on cSBP. There was a numerically small but significant difference in the unattended orthostatic BP change between bSBP and cSBP.

Research and Development of Information and Communication Technology-based Home Blood Pressure Monitoring from Morning to Nocturnal Hypertension.

Asians have specific characteristics of hypertension (HTN) and its relationship with cardiovascular disease. The morning surge in blood pressure (BP) in Asians is more extended, and the association slope between higher BP and the risk for cardiovascular events is steeper in this population than in whites. Thus, 24-hour BP control including at night and in the morning is especially important for Asian patients with HTN. There are 3 components of "perfect 24-hour BP control": the 24-hour BP level, adequate dipping of nocturnal BP (dipper type), and adequate BP variability such as the morning BP surge. The morning BP-guided approach using home BP monitoring (HBPM) is the first step toward perfect 24-hour BP control. After controlling morning HTN, nocturnal HTN is the second target. We have been developing HBPM that can measure nocturnal BP. First, we developed a semiautomatic HBPM device with the function of automatic fixed-interval BP measurement during sleep. In the J-HOP (Japan Morning Surge Home Blood Pressure) study, the largest nationwide home BP cohort, we successfully measured nocturnal home BP using this device with data memory, 3 times during sleep (2, 3, and 4 am), and found that nocturnal home BP is significantly correlated with organ damage independently of office and morning BP values. The second advance was the development of trigger nocturnal BP (TNP) monitoring with an added trigger function that initiates BP measurements when oxygen desaturation falls below a variable threshold continuously monitored by pulse oximetry. TNP can detect the specific nocturnal BP surges triggered by hypoxic episodes in patients with sleep apnea syndrome. We also added the lowest heart rate-trigger function to TNP to detect the "basal nocturnal BP," which is determined by the circulating volume and structural cardiovascular system without any increase in sympathetic tonus. This double TNP is a novel concept for evaluating the pathogenic pressor mechanism of nocturnal BP. These data are now collected using an information and communication technology (ICT)-based monitoring system. The BP variability includes different time-phase variability from the shortest beat-by-beat, positional, diurnal, day-by-day, visit-to-visit, seasonal, and the longest yearly changes. The synergistic resonance of each type of BP variability would produce great dynamic BP surges, which trigger cardiovascular events. Thus, in the future, the management of HTN based on the simultaneous assessment of the resonance of all of the BP variability phenotypes using a wearable "surge" BP monitoring device with an ICT-based data analysis system will contribute to the ultimate individualized medication for cardiovascular disease.