BACKGROUND/AIMS There is no nationwide population-based study for the long-term mortality after single episode of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) in cirrhotic patients. Our study showed the short-term and long-term mortalities, and identified the mortality risk of SBP. MATERIALS AND METHODS The National Health Insurance Database, derived from the Taiwan National Health Insurance progr...

BACKGROUND Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) provides relevant data about blood pressure over a 24-h period. The analysis of parameters to determine the blood pressure profile from these data is of great importance. OBJECTIVES To calculate areas under systolic and diastolic blood pressure curves (SBP-AUC/DBP-AUC) and compare with systolic and diastolic blood pressure load (SBPL/DBPL...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to evaluate receiver operating characteristic curves to identify optimal cutoff values of exercise systolic blood pressure (SBP) using both peak SBP and relative SBP (peak SBP minus resting SBP) as predictors of future hypertension (HTN). METHODS Participants were 3,742 healthy normotensive men who underwent symptom-limited treadmill testing at baselin...

BACKGROUND Ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring is the reference standard for out-of-clinic BP measurement. Thresholds for identifying ambulatory hypertension (daytime systolic BP [SBP]/diastolic BP [DBP] ≥135/85 mm Hg, 24-hour SBP/DBP ≥130/80 mm Hg, and nighttime SBP/DBP ≥120/70 mm Hg) have been derived from European, Asian, and South American populations. We determined BP thresholds for ...

Declining systolic blood pressure (SBP) is common in very old age and is associated with adverse events, such as dementia. Knowledge of factors associated with SBP changes could explain the etiology of this decline in SBP. This study investigated longitudinal changes in socioeconomic factors, medical conditions, drug prescriptions, and assessments and their associations with SBP changes among v...

Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is one of the most common and life-threatening complications of cirrhosis. It occurs in 10% to 30% of patients admitted to hospital and recent studies tend to demonstrate that SBP incidence seems to be decreasing in its frequency. A bacterial overgrowth with translocation through the increased permeable small intestinal wall and impaired defense mechanism...

BACKGROUND Recently, 24-hour monitoring of central systolic blood pressure (SBP) has become available. However, the relation between end-organ damage and the 24-hour central SBP profile and variability has not so far been analyzed. Therefore, the aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the relation between 24-hour central SBP, 24-hour central SBP profile as well as central SBP short-t...

Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is defined as an ascitic fluid infection without a surgically-treatable intra-abdominal source. Timely diagnosis and treatment of SBP may increase the patient’s survival.1 Any biological marker that could strongly predict SBP may obviate the need for paracentesis while increasing the patient’s chance of survival by expediting the diagnosis and treatment o...

Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is a frequent and severe complication in cirrhotic patients with ascites. Although identifying the pathogen(s) plays a major role in the management of infectious diseases, ascitic fluid cultures often show negative results in patients with clinical signs and symptoms of SBP, and ascitic fluid cell analyses are the gold standard method for diagnosing SBP. ...