24-h-ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (24-h-ABPM) and Pulse Wave Analysis (PWA) in Patients With Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) to Evaluate the Individual Cardiovascular Risk Profile.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease in western industrialized countries. Globally, but also in Germany, the current prevalence of NAFLD in the adult population is about 20-30% with a continuing upward trend.

The main cause of death in patients with NAFLD include cardiovascular events and the major risk factor for the occurrence of cardiovascular events is arterial hypertension.

Besides absolute systolic and diastolic blood pressure values, disturbances of circadian blood pressure variability seem to be of particular relevance for the occurrence of cardiovascular events.

24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (24-h-ABPM) has been established as the most reliable, non-invasive method to diagnose arterial hypertension. 24-h-ABPM complements office blood pressure measurement by the option of characterizing the circadian blood pressure profile and is superior to it in terms of predicting total mortality and cardiovascular mortality. Under- or overestimation of the actual blood pressure level during individual measurements in everyday clinical practice can be avoided by using 24-h-ABPM and special hypertension phenotypes such as white coat hypertension or masked hypertension can be identified.

In addition, modern 24-h-ABPM devices allow a simultaneous pulse wave analysis (PWA) to evaluate central hemodynamic parameters such as central aortic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure augmentation and pulse wave velocity. Using these functional parameters of pulsatile hemodynamics, it is possible to determine the extent of vascular damage and the cardiovascular risk of the individual patient much earlier and more precisely.