INTRODUCTION
I founded the Blood Pressure Unit in 1979 in the Charitable Infirmary, Jervis Street in collaboration with Professor Kevin O’Malley. From the outset the Unit concentrated on research into the pharmacology of blood pressure lowering drugs, particularly in the elderly, and on the development of blood pressure measuring techniques, especially techniques of ambulatory blood pressure measurement.
The Arterial Disease Assessment Prevention and Treatment (ADAPT) Clinic was established in collaboration with Professor David Bouchier-Hayes and Professor Desmond Fitzgerald in Beaumont Hospital 1997. The rationale for this unique clinic was based on the concept that disease of the arterial organ was a fundamental denominator in all-cardiovascular disease. The ADAPT Clinic was established to ensure that all patients with cardiovascular disease, regardless of the speciality to which they presented, would receive the most comprehensive risk factor assessment with appropriate life-style modification and evidence-based drug treatment directed at the arterial organ.
The ADAPT concept was further developed in 1999 with the establishment of the ADAPT Centre, which became the research facility of the Blood Pressure Unit. The ADAPT Centre was committed to the emerging role of translational research in bridging the void between the clinical ‘bedside’ and the laboratory ‘bench’. The ADAPT Centre provided out-patient facilities and a cardiovascular laboratory equipped to perform state-of-the-art cardiovascular assessment that included echocardiography, electrocardiography with stress testing, Holter monitoring, applanation tonometry, pulse wave velocity analysis, 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, beat-to-beat non-invasive blood pressure monitoring, 24-hour silent ischaemia monitoring, fundal photography and imaging, and carotid wall (intima-media thickness) imaging. Through its association with the Charitable Infirmary Trust Molecular Medicine Laboratories and the Clinical Research Centre in the RCSI Building at Beaumont Hospital, and with the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, the Centre for Proteomics, SURGEN, and BIOSYS at RCSI, the ADAPT Centre was able to further translational research into the biochemical and genetic markers of risk, thrombosis, and endothelial damage.
Twenty-one Annual Reports, which are listed elsewhere on this website, record the research, scientific presentations and publications, and most importantly the staff who performed the work of the Blood Pressure unit over its 27-year history. These reports give details of over 600 papers published in peer-reviewed journals together with numerous editorials, letters, books, book chapters, general and educational articles and abstracts. The reports also list the scientific and educational presentations made since 1988 in many countries around the world. The following list of papers, many of which are available as pdf files, summarise the scientific output of the Blood Pressure Unit and serve as a history of blood pressure management during this period. For convenience scientific publications pre-dating the foundation of the Blood Pressure Unit are also listed.
