THE PROGNOSTIC VALUE OF THE COLD PRESSOR TEST AND THE BASAL BLOOD PRESSURE BASED ON AN EIGHTEEN-YEAR FOLLOW-UP STUDY

摘要

In the selection of men for a career in naval aviation, it is important to be able to eliminate applicants in whom hypertension will develop. It has been suggested that the cold pressor test defined a "prehypertensive" state and might have predictive value in identifying individuals predisposed to high blood pressure. This hypothesis has never been tested adequately by a long-term prospective study.nIn a study of young normal individuals followed over an eighteen-year period the cold pressor response did not correlate with subsequent blood pressure, with interval blood pressure increment, or the development of hypertension. An important relation¬ship was found, however, between basal blood pressure recorded prior to the test and blood pressures recorded eighteen years later.