Compared with whom? Addressing the prognostic value of ambulatory blood pressure categories.

and referred cohorts of hypertensive patients,5,6 ambulatory blood pressure (BP) proved superior to clinic BP for prediction of the risk of major cardiovascular events and mortality. These studies analyzed ambulatory BP as a continuous variable.1–6 However, for risk stratification and management of patients, clinicians need operational thresholds, which, by definition, are somewhat arbitrary. Indeed, several clinical categories based on ambulatory BP have been proposed over the last 2 decades well before the evidence of the prognostic superiority of ambulatory over clinic BP as continuous variables became clear. “White-coat” hypertension (WCH), “masked” hypertension, “nondipping,” “overdipping,” and “early morning rise” BP patterns are examples of clinical categories of which the prognostic value has been investigated in outcome-based studies.