Different prognostic impact of 24-hour mean blood pressure and pulse pressure on stroke and coronary artery disease in essential hypertension.

BACKGROUND We tested the hypothesis that the steady and pulsatile components of blood pressure (BP) exert a different influence on coronary artery disease and stroke in subjects with hypertension. METHODS AND RESULTS We analyzed data on 2311 subjects with essential hypertension. All subjects (mean age 51 years, 47% women) underwent off-therapy 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring. Over a follow-up period of up to 14 years (mean 4.7 years), there were 132 major cardiac events (1.20 per 100 person-years) and 105 cerebrovascular events (0.90 per 100 person-years). After adjustment for age, sex, diabetes, serum cholesterol, and cigarette smoking (all P<0.01), for each 10 mm Hg increase in 24-hour pulse pressure (PP), there was an independent 35% increase in the risk of cardiac events (95% CI 17% to 55%). Twenty-four-hour mean BP was not a significant predictor of cardiac events after controlling for PP. After adjustment for age, sex, and diabetes (all P<0.05), for every 10 mm Hg increase in 24-hour mean BP, the risk of cerebrovascular events increased by 42% (95% CI 19% to 69%), and 24-hour PP did not yield significance after controlling for 24-hour mean BP. Twenty-four-hour PP was also an independent predictor of fatal cardiac events, and 24-hour mean BP was an independent predictor of fatal cerebrovascular events. CONCLUSIONS In subjects with predominantly systolic and diastolic hypertension, ambulatory mean BP and PP exert a different predictive effect on the cardiac and cerebrovascular complications. Although PP is the dominant predictor of cardiac events, mean BP is the major independent predictor of cerebrovascular events.