White-coat hypertension in the elderly. Echocardiographic analysis. A substudy of the EPICARDIAN project.

The aims of this study were to investigate echocardiographic abnormalities in the elderly and to evaluate differences between those who are normotensive and those who have white-coat hypertension or sustained hypertension. The study used data on a subsample of participants in the EPICARDIAN project who came from the Lista district of Madrid, Spain. Of the 271 included, 61 (22.5%) were normotensive, 81 (29.9%) had white-coat hypertension and 129 (49.6%) had sustained hypertension. The left ventricular mass index was significantly different between the subgroups: 94.9 g/m2 in normotensives, 125.6 g/m2 in those with white-coat hypertension and 136.3 g/m2 in those with sustained hypertension (P< .001). The prevalence of left ventricular hypertrophy, defined using Deveraux's criteria, was 13.2% in normotensives, 49.1% in those with white-coat hypertension and 54.3% in those with sustained hypertension (P=.00007). White-coat hypertension is not a innocuous finding in the elderly because its implications for cardiac health are closer to those of sustained hypertension than to those of normal blood pressure.