The severity of chronic heart failure and the parameters of daily blood pressure profile in patients with coronary heart disease

Aim: Although the prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD) and hypertension which are the most common causes of the development and progression of chronic heart failure (CHF) is high, 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring (ABPM) in patients with CHF is not mandatory to be performed. The growing number of evidence suggests that excessive decrease in BP which clearly reflects increased BP variability (BPV) affects the survival of patients with heart failure (HF). The objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between the parameters specific to CHF severity and features of daily BP profiles in patients with ischemic CHF and hypertension. Methods: Ninety patients with functional class II–IV of CHF and CHD (the main group) and 50 non-CHF patients with hypertension (the comparative group) were examined. The transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) [atrial end-systolic dimension (ESD), ventricular end-diastolic dimension (EDD), left ventricular mass index (LVMI), and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF)] and 24-hour ABPM (BPV parameters and proportions of hypotensive episodes) were performed. The relationships between the abovementioned parameters were evaluated using the univariate correlation analysis and stepwise multiple linear regression. Results: Higher functional class of CHF is found to be associated with a higher incidence of daytime systolic BP (SBP) decline and nighttime SBP and diastolic BP (DBP) variability while higher LVEF is related to the hypotensive episodes regardless of CHF. Conclusions: It appears that the larger trials involving CHF patients with reduced LVEF should be conducted to clarify the obtained results.