D002: 24-hour noninvasive continuous finger blood pressure variability and cerebral white matter lesions. preliminary results

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to assess the relationship of 24-hour noninvasive continuous finger blood pressure variability to the presence of cerebral white matter lesions (WML) in asymptomatic middle-aged untreated hypertensive patients. Seventeen mild to moderate never treated essential hypertensive patients (11 men, 6 women), aged 50–60 years, without clinical evidence of target organ damage were studied. All patients underwent a brain-magnetic resonance imaging and a 24-hour noninvasive beat-to-beat finger blood pressure monitoring by means of a Portapres device. Systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP) and mean (MBP) blood pressures were obtained from each single pulse wave by the FAST software. We calculated 24-hour SBP, DBP, MBP, pulse pressure (PP) as well as short-term variability (average of the standard deviations obtained for each half-hour MBP) and long-term variability (standard deviation of the average of the half-hour MBP values). Preliminary results show that middle-aged hypertensives with silent cerebral WML have a tendency towards higher values of SBP, DBP, MBP, PP, and longterm variability than hypertensives without WML. (See Table)

	Without WML (n = 9)	With WML (n = 8)
Portapres 24-h SBP	135.79 (13.05)	138.54 (11.21)
Portapres 24-h DBP	77.00 (10.02)	79.84 (6.97)
Portapres 24-h MBP	95.71 (9.67)	99.84 (6.27)
Pulse pressure	56.93 (13.03)	58.69 (10.82)
Short-term variability	9.59 (1.41)	9.15 (1.26)
Long-term variability	9.63 (2.87)	10.49 (1.80)

Data are mean (standard deviation). Values are expressed in mmHg.

These preliminary results suggest that, in addition to the severity of BP values, long-term Bp variability may be associated with the development of cerebral white matter lesions.

Continuous finger blood pressure, blood pressure variability, cerebral white matter lesions