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Diagnosing Hypertension in Children and Adolescents
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To the Editor: Dr Hansen and colleagues1 compared blood pressure measured in children and adolescents with age-adjusted and height-adjusted 95th percentiles. Following current guidelines,2 they categorized participants as having hypertension if either the systolic blood pressure or the diastolic blood pressure exceeded the corresponding 95th percentile on 3 occasions. The blood pressure of each participant was determined at least 3 times. The mean number of blood pressure determinations per participant was 3.8. The study spanned a period of 7 years 3 months, so it is possible that the blood pressure of some participants was measured many times, but the maximum number of times a participant was observed was not reported.
Blood pressure in children varies widely,3-4 and it is possible for any given measured blood pressure to exceed a threshold by chance, even when the usual blood pressure is below the threshold. For example, a 10-year-old boy of median height . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Johan M. van Schalkwyk, MB BCh, FCP(SA), FRACP
johanvs@adhb.govt.nz
Department of Anaesthesia
Auckland City Hospital
Auckland, New Zealand
Martin J. Turner, BSc, MSc, PhD
School of Public Health Screening
and Test Evaluation Programme
University of Sydney
New South Wales, Australia
RELATED LETTER
Diagnosing Hypertension in Children and Adolescents—Reply
Matthew L. Hansen, Paul W. Gunn, and David C. Kaelber
JAMA. 2008;299(2):168-169.
EXTRACT
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RELATED ARTICLE
Underdiagnosis of Hypertension in Children and Adolescents
Matthew L. Hansen, Paul W. Gunn, and David C. Kaelber
JAMA. 2007;298(8):874-879.
ABSTRACT
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