Assessment of dipping status of systemic blood pressure by 24 hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) in patients with features of optic nerve head (disc) changes of Optic Neuropathy

Background: Optic neuropathy is a spectrum of disease of different etiology, and especially when associated with systemic disease like hypertension, where there is effect on auto regulation mechanism of the ocular perfusion. Aim: To see the blood pressure behavior and dipping status by 24 hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring among patients who were diagnosed to have features of secondary optic neuropathy whether they were hypertensive or not. Methods: Ninety-four patients were included in a cross sectional study, and using specific exclusion criteria, 38 patients were having changes of optic neuropathy as diagnosed by optical coherence tomography, with 56 other patients as a control group. All were examined and investigated, and subjected to 24 hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring test using specific device (CONTEC TM AUTOMATIC BP MONITER MODEL: ABPM50) and the data from the device were displayed to the computer for measurement and analysis. The dipping status was calculated manually using a specific formula. The data, then fed to SPSS software version 20 for statistical analysis. Results: There was no statistical significance for age, sex, BMI and other risk factors like hypertension, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia. Reverse or blunted response was common among hypertensive patients in both studied groups, but the P-value not significant. Conclusion: This study showed that there was no specific BP dipping pattern by ABPM in the studied patients with optic neuropathy in our locality.