Via practica 12/2009

Pulse pressure correlates with systolic blood pressure and it is independent on age and gender of hypertensives

Pulse pressure (PP) helps to predict an occurrence of new cardiovascular events. PP is a sensitive marker for arterial stiffness and elasticity. A value of the PP increases with an artery stenosis. Despite this, PP is not followed in clinical practice. An importance of PP and its possible interrelationships with other clinical factors are being constantly studied. The aim of this study was to review the blood pre ssure control in correlation with PP in hypertensive patients treated in ambulant care in Slovakia. In addition we tried to identify possible correlation among studied risk factors. We have analyzed retrospective data from 910 adult hypertensive patients (the age 25 – 81 years, 45,6 % were males)) treated in ambulant care. Control of blood pressure was defined as value < 140/90 mmHg. The values of PP < 55 mmHg were regarded as normal, values 55 – 62 mmHg as increased and PP ≥ 63 mmHg as high. At the end of the observation period, the blood pressure control was achieved in 28 % of hypertensives. During this period number of hypertensives with normal value of PP has increased. However, 15 % of hypertensives at the beginning and 5 % at the end of the study had normal PP value and their blood pressure was ≥ 160 and/or 100 mmHg. We didn’t find a correlation between the age and a systolic blood pressure, the age and a diastolic blood pressure, a PP and a diastolic blood pressure, a PP and the age. On the contrary, we detected clear link between PP and systolic blood pressure among males and females, independently of age.

Keywords: hypertension, control of blood pressure, pulse pressure.