Assessment of antihypertensive treatment by ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.

Whole-day ambulatory blood pressure monitoring provides a better diagnosis of hypertension and a better prediction of long-term cardiovascular complications than conventional office measurements. Ambulatory monitoring is a reliable technique for the assessment of antihypertensive drugs. First, it determines truly hypertensive patients in whom treatment is appropriate. Second, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring helps to evaluate the efficacy of antihypertensive therapy during average working days. Finally, this method allows investigators to establish the duration of antihypertensive activity of new drug formulations, and thereby to improve compliance.