Nocturnal hypertension

High blood pressure (hypertension) is an important cause of cardiovascular diseases. Blood pressure varies throughout day and night following a circadian pattern. Current guidelines refer to daytime blood pressure for diagnostic and therapeutic actions.

However, it is now clear that nocturnal blood pressure is an important predictor of organ damage and cardiovascular events.

Learning Objectives

• Recognizing the impact of circadian pattern of blood pressure especially in hypertension patients
• The impact of ‘white-coat’ and ‘masked hypertension’, dipping and non-dipping blood pressure
• Undetected nocturnal blood pressure, a key cardiovascular risk
• To understand the implication of untreated high nocturnal blood pressure in sleep apnea and other comorbidities
• Innovations in obtaining night blood pressure in daily home practice