Clinical and ambulatory blood pressure
Office BP was measured manually by trained technicians and obtained from the nondominant arm or the other arm if the systolic BP was > 10 mmHg higher. The BP was measured in the supine position after a minimum of 5 minutes of rest and was rounded up to the nearest 2 mmHg. Using the arm from which the office BP was obtained, the ABPM-04 instrument (Meditech Ltd, Budapest, Hungary) was applied for 24-hour ABPM, with readings taken every 20 minutes.Nondipping was defined as a reduction in night-time systolic BP ⩽ 10% of the daytime average systolic BP and dipping as a nightly fall by more than 10% of the daytime average systolic BP value.