Clinical Significance of Nighttime Blood Pressure / 대한내과학회지

ABSTRACT

It was impossible to measure the nighttime blood pressure in patients with hypertension for more than one hundred years. The introduction of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring made it possible to evaluate the nighttime blood pressure and clinical significances in recent 40 years. There are tremendous evidences for proving that the nighttime blood pressure is the more powerful predictor in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality than conventional office and ambulatory daytime blood pressure. The cardiovascular mortality can be reduced when 5% of nighttime blood pressure decreased from Ohasama registry report. So investigators should reevaluate the antihypertensive drugs in the view points of nighttime blood pressure reduction. And changing the administration schedule of antihypertensive drugs, so called chronotherapy, is effective for controlling the nighttime blood pressure and modifying the blood pressure circadian rhythm. Korean Ambulatory Blood Pressure (KORABP), nationwide ambulatory blood pressure monitoring registry in Korea, may answer unproved questions for controlling nighttime blood pressure.