Extreme dipping: More complex than it looks

Abstract

Information on clinical and prognostic implications of the extreme dipping (ED) pattern is scanty and findings provided by studies are controversial. Increasing evidence suggests than mean night-time blood pressure (BP), a powerful predictor of cardiovascular outcomes, in ED can be markedly different between patients and distributed over a wide range of values ranging from hypotension to hypertension. On the whole, these findings emphasize the need to know that the ED pattern is a heterogeneous phenotype that deserve to be evaluated more in detail in future studies.