Cumulative Blood Pressure Load and Left Ventricular Mass

Delayed diagnosis of SAH causes a morbid hypertensive state, with target-organ damage (TOD): brain, kidney, and heart. An early diagnosis and proper follow-up of patients with SAH prevents and reduces comorbidities associated with TOD. Screening and follow-up of SAH are traditionally performed by routine self-monitoring of blood pressure (HBPM) or clinic blood pressure measurement (CBPM). Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) consists of measuring BP every fifteen and thirty minutes for twenty-four hours, using a sphygmomanometer adapted to a portable monitor, which led to the recognition of SAH phenotypes often not identified through SMBP or CBPM. The ABPM offers three types of information: a) the mean BP in twenty-four hours, day and night; b) BP variability; and c) cumulative BP load. Cumulative BP load is the percentage of BP measurements above 135/85 mmHg. Increased LVM is a consequence of chronic hypertension and early sign of TOD at the cardiac level. It has been shown that the variability in nocturnal diastolic BP correlates significantly with LVM, independently of mean BP load. It is likely that an elevated BP load according to ABPM correlates with higher TOB; however, at the moment, there is no standardized value of BP load that allows predicting the increase in the LVM. For this reason, a standardized cut-off of cumulative BP load is helpful for understanding ABPM in the screening SAH.