Ambulatory Blood Pressure Control and Subclinical Left Ventricular Dysfunction in Treated Hypertensive Subjects

Blood pressure (BP) control in hypertensive patients is crucial for reducing the risk of heart failure development and may be particularly important in elderly subjects, who have an especially high prevalence of hypertension and risk of heart failure (1). Left ventricular (LV) global longitudinal strain (GLS) is an echocardiographic measure of LV systolic function that can be an indicator of early subclinical cardiac dysfunction, even when LV ejection fraction is normal. The association of BP control with early subclinical LV dysfunction according to GLS has not been extensively studied, and it is also unknown whether assessing BP control with ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring is superior to using office BP measurements in this regard. Therefore, we investigated the association of BP control with GLS by using ABP and office BP criteria in a community-based, predominantly elderly cohort with normal LV ejection fraction.