This issue of the Journal of the American Society of Hypertension features several intriguing and informative reports.The first article is a report by Dr. Townsend and colleagues of the initial meeting of the North American Artery Association held in Bethesda, MD, in April 2010. This meeting included investigators from academia and industry, medical device manufacturers, and members of the Food and Drug Administration interested in the issues involved in measurements of vascular dynamics and central as well as peripheral blood pressure. The article addresses several issues that arose during this meeting, including the possible role of central blood pressure measurements as a better predictor of cardiovascular outcomes in hypertension than the conventional brachial artery measures. The article reviews cardiovascular physiology with these differences in mind. It features descriptions of the available equipment for these measurements. A discussion of the emerging evidence for the importance of central blood pressure estimation from several recent trials provides further stimulus for future investigation.
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