Swasti Chaturvedi, Deborah H Lipszyc, Christoph Licht, Jonathan C Craig, Rulan Parekh
BACKGROUND: Hypertension is a major risk factor for stroke, coronary artery disease and kidney damage in adults. There is a paucity of data on the long-term sequelae of persistent hypertension in children, but it is known that children with hypertension have evidence of end organ damage and are at risk of hypertension into adulthood. The prevalence of hypertension in children is rising, most likely due to a concurrent rise in obesity rates. In children with hypertension, non-pharmacological measures are often recommended as first-line therapy, but a significant proportion of children will eventually require pharmacological treatment to reduce blood pressure, especially those with evidence of end organ damage at presentation or during follow-up...
September 2014: Evidence-based Child Health: a Cochrane Review Journal