Blood Pressure Measurement Methods Have Clinically Important Variance

MONDAY, Aug. 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Differences across blood pressure (BP) measurement methods show clinically important variance in readings, according to a review published online Aug. 19 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Jiunn-Tyng Yeh, M.D., Ph.D., from Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to identify studies comparing BP measurement methods of office-based BP measurement. A network meta-analysis was conducted to assess agreement between methods and clinical implications.

Based on 65 studies (40,022 participants), the researchers found that compared with research office systolic BP measurement, the pooled mean differences from corresponding systolic BPs were 2.69 mm Hg higher for convenient office BP measurement, 4.57 mm Hg lower for automated office BP measurement, 4.59 mm Hg lower for home BP measurement, 4.22 mm Hg lower for daytime ambulatory BP measurement, 18.14 mm Hg lower for nighttime ambulatory BP measurement, and 8.63 mm Hg lower for 24-hour ambulatory BP measurement. Higher reference BP levels were associated with larger differences between research office and other BP measurement methods.

“We showed that the differences among BPM methods are not fixed, but instead depend on the underlying systolic BP and diastolic BP,” the authors write. “Thus, guidelines should reconsider current benchmarks across BP measurement methods.”

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