TL: White coat hypertension diagnosed by 24-h am- bulatory monitoring. Examination of 159 newly diag- nosed hypertensive patients

The study was conducted to estimate the frequency of white coat hypertension, ie, hypertension when in contact with the doctor only, in patients with newly diagnosed hypertension. We studied 159 consecutive patients (median age 47 years, 86 women) referred from primary health care to a hypertension clinic. For all patients, their general practitioner had decided to treat the hyper-tension pharmacologically, but the treatment had not yet begun. The blood pressure measurements reported from the referring doctors were 164.1 ± 18.1/104.3 ± 7.1 mm Hg (mean ± SD). Measured at the hypertension clinic with random zero sphyg-momanometer the pressures were 156.8 ± 22.5/ 99.8 ± 11.7 mm Hg. The indirectly measured day