Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Prehypertension or masked hypertension—which is responsible for target-organ damage?

Nature Reviews Cardiology volume 12, page 497 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

We read the Review by Egan and Stevens-Fabry (Prehypertension—prevalence, health risks, and management strategies. Nat. Rev. Cardiol. 12, 289–300; 2015)1 with great interest. We wish to discuss some views about screening for masked hypertension for risk stratification in prehypertension.

Epidemiological studies have shown that prehypertension is associated with increased risk of target-organ damage.1,2 However, data (described below) have shown that target-organ damage in prehypertension might be caused by masked hypertension, a condition in which individuals are found to have normal blood pressure (BP) in the clinic, but elevated out-of-office BP, measured by ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) or home BP monitoring (HBPM).3

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Egan, B. M. & Stevens-Fabry, S. Prehypertension—prevalence, health risks, and management strategies. Nat. Rev. Cardiol. 12, 289–300 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Huang, Y. et al. Prehypertension and the risk of stroke: a meta-analysis. Neurology 82, 1153–1161 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Pickering, T. G., Davidson, K., Gerin, W. & Schwartz, J. E. Masked hypertension. Hypertension 40, 795–796 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Shimbo, D., Newman, J. D. & Schwartz, J. E. Masked hypertension and prehypertension: diagnostic overlap and interrelationships with left ventricular mass: the Masked Hypertension Study. Am. J. Hypertens. 25, 664–671 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Brguljan-Hitij, J. et al. Risk stratification by ambulatory blood pressure monitoring across JNC classes of conventional blood pressure. Am. J. Hypertens. 27, 956–965 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Asayama, K. et al. Risk stratification by self-measured home blood pressure across categories of conventional blood pressure: a participant-level meta-analysis. PLoS Med. 11, e1001591 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Manios, E. et al. Impact of prehypertension on carotid artery intima-media thickening: actual or masked? Atherosclerosis 214, 215–219 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Veerabhadrappa, P. et al. Endothelial-dependent flow-mediated dilation in African Americans with masked-hypertension. Am. J. Hypertens. 24, 1102–1107 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Sobrino, J., Domenech, M., Camafort, M., Vinyoles, E. & Coca, A. Prevalence of masked hypertension and associated factors in normotensive healthcare workers. Blood Press. Monit. 18, 326–331 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Pierdomenico, S. D. et al. Prognostic relevance of masked hypertension in subjects with prehypertension. Am. J. Hypertens. 21, 879–883 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Second Out-Patient Department, the First People's Hospital of Shunde, Penglai Road 1, Daliang Town, Shunde District, 528300, Foshan, China

    Ying Chen

  2. Department of Cardiology, the First People's Hospital of Shunde, Penglai Road 1, Daliang Town, Shunde District, 528300, Foshan, China

    Yu-li Huang

  3. Department of Cardiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, 58 Zhongshan Road 2, Guangzhou, 510080, China

    Wei-yi Mai

Authors
  1. Ying Chen
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yu-li Huang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wei-yi Mai
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei-yi Mai.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Chen, Y., Huang, Yl. & Mai, Wy. Prehypertension or masked hypertension—which is responsible for target-organ damage?. Nat Rev Cardiol 12, 497 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2015.99

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2015.99

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing