Left Ventricular Changes in Isolated Office Hypertension

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Abstract
ISOLATED OFFICE (IO) hypertension, also defined as "white-coat" hypertension, is a frequently diagnosed condition characterized by persistently elevated office blood pressure (BP) combined with normal daytime ambulatory BP.1,2 The incidence of this condition is 12% to 50%, depending on the definition of IO hypertension used and the population studied.3,4 The literature remains inconclusive on the issue of whether IO hypertension carries a pathological risk: it is considered an essentially benign condition by some researchers5-10 and a pathological situation, potentially associated with cardiovascular risk, by others.11-19 There is general agreement that compared with sustained hypertensives, IO hypertensives have substantially less target organ damage and cardiovascular risk.7-9,14,17,20,21 However, compared with normotensives, IO hypertensives show some degree of cardiovascular abnormality, as in many,12-19,22 but not all,5,6,8,9 similar studies.