Ambulatory Monitoring and Blood Pressure Variability

Abstract

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is a relatively new clinical and research technique that uses invasive and noninvasive blood pressure measurement methods combined with computer technology for data analysis to evaluate the variability of blood pressure. While the intra-arterial technique for ambulatory blood pressure monitoring has been around for 30 years, the automatic noninvasive devices have only come into regular use in the last several years. The amount of information in the medical literature derived from ambulatory blood pressure monitoring has grown impressively in the past decade, however, as numerous investigators around the globe have carried out studies of blood pressure variability, especially with regard to diagnostic and therapeutic utility. Prior to Dr Pickering's book, there were a few volumes of collected papers on ambulatory blood pressure monitoring from research meetings in the early and middle 1980s. However, none of these symposia proceedings are a set piece that comprehensively reviews the