Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring editing criteria : Is standardization needed?

Abstract The effect of different editing methods on the reproducibility of ambulatory blood pressure and on its correlation with microalbuminuria was studied in a population of 584 stage I hypertensives participating in the Hypertension and Ambulatory Recording Venetia Study (HARVEST) Group. For systolic blood pressure (SBP), a modified version of the Casadei method showed the best reproducibility indices, followed by the original Casadei and the Kennedy methods. The Staessen, SpaceLabs, and A&D methods showed poorer indices, irrespective of whether calculations were made in recordings with more or less than 10% artifactual readings. For diastolic blood pressure (DBP), reproducibility indices did not substantially vary with the various editing procedures except for the Kennedy method, which showed a slightly better performance. Blood pressure variability (standard deviation) showed a better reproducibility with the original and modified versions of the Casadei and the Kennedy procedures than with the other methods, especially in the subjects with percentage of measurement errors greater than 10%. The correlation coefficients between 24-h SBP and albumin excretion rate ranged from 0.128 for the raw data to 0.154 for the data edited according to the Casadei procedures. For DBP, the correlation coefficients were similar except for DBP edited with the Kennedy method, which did not correlate with albumin excretion rate to a statistically significant level. These data suggest that, to make the results of different laboratories comparable, common ambulatory blood pressure editing criteria should be used. The modified version of the Casadei procedure, which is automatic and can be applied to recordings obtained from any device, should be regarded as the method of choice.