DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2020.v08i01.003

Pages: 14-19

Background: Hypertension is one of the leading causes of the global burden of disease and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, stroke and renal failure. Since younger patients are easily susceptible to reactive hypertension and may have low pre-test probability of hypertension, in this context we aimed at measuring Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring(ABPM) to differentiate true from white coat hypertension and to identify dippers and nondippers . Methods: A total of forty six newly diagnosed hypertensive patients based on clinic BP measurement from out-patient department with age ranging from 18-40years were included. All were subjected to ABPM by using ABPM-05 machine from Meditech Ltd. and Easy ABPM 1.1.1.0 as program. Results: The mean age of the subjects was 31.67±5.43 yrs, among them 35 were males and 11 were females. Out of total 46, 38 patients had true hypertension and 8 had white coat hypertension. Dipping was the most common (30) finding followed by non-dipping (16). Non dipping pattern is seen more in females (7 out of 11) than males. It is observed that the Haemoglobin levels in dippers was significantly higher as compared to subjects with non-dipping pattern (14.4 vs 12.2, p=0.001). Serum albumin were also higher in dippers when compared to non-dippers (4.33g/dl vs 3.84 g/dl, p=0.04). Conclusion: Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is a very important tool to identify white coat hypertension, where they may not benefit from immediate antihypertensive treatment so as to avoid overtreatment and also identify non dippers which was sought to be a cardio-vascular risk factor.