Usefulness of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) in daily clinical practice: Data from the Spanish ABPM registry

Hypertension is one of the most important challenges for public health systems because of its high prevalence and its association with the risk of cardiovascular and renal diseases. Adequate control of hypertension is low in population and medical settings, with physicians frequently misclassifying patients' blood pressure status based on readings taken in the clinic rather than ambulatory blood pressure measurements (ABPM). Data from the Spanish Society of Hypertension ABPM registry support ABPM as a feasible option in the primary care setting, providing valuable information for the diagnosis and management of hypertension. By using ABPM rather than office BP monitoring, BP control can be doubled. This is an encouraging message to clinicians, although there is still a relatively large degree of undetected controlled and uncontrolled hypertension. This short review describes the design, development and main results of the Spanish Society of Hypertension ABPM registry, a project based on a large-scale network of Spanish physicians trained in ABPM.