the prevalence and clinical correlates of an auscultatory gap in systemic sclerosis patients患病率和临床相关的系统性硬化症病人听诊的差距.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Rheumatology Volume 2012, Article ID 590845, 4 pages doi:10.1155/2012/590845 Research Article The Prevalence and Clinical Correlates of an Auscultatory Gap in Systemic Sclerosis Patients Tracy M. Frech,1 Jason Penrod,2 Michael J. Battistone,1, 3 Allen D. Sawitzke,1 and Barry M. Stults2, 3 1 Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, 4B200 SOM, 30 North 1900 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA 2 Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA 3 Department of Medicine, Salt Lake City Veterans Aff airs Medical Center and the University of Utah, 50 North Medical Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Tracy M. Frech, tracy.frech@ Received 11 October 2011; Accepted 4 December 2011 Academic Editor: Bruce M. Rothschild Copyright © 2012 Tracy M. Frech et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction. Accurate blood pressure (BP) measurement is essential to the diagnosis and management of hypertension in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) to help prevent renal and cardiovascular complications. The presence of an auscultatory gap during manual BP measurement—the temporary disappearance of the Korotkoff sounds during cuff deflation—leads to a potentially important underestimate of systolic BP if undetected. Objectives. Since the presence of an auscultatory gap is frequently associated with increased vascular stiffness, we investigated its presence and correlates in 50 consecutive SSc patients. Methods. For each pati