Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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August 23, 2007

Most Children With High Blood Pressure Not Diagnosed
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=18E8810:A6F02AD83191E160760F04FF86D17AF09574F7DCC14957C0 Study calls for
more careful screening by pediatricians High blood pressure, or
hypertension, is a disease usually associated with adults, but
children can get it too and can have serious health problems because
of it. A new study is now calling for pediatricians to screen children
more carefully for this disease. VOA's Carol Pearson explains.

It is sometimes difficult to determine if a child has high blood
pressure because so many variables are involved. 







Dr. David KaelberDr. David Kaelber is a pediatrician who studied some
15,000 children's medical records spanning a seven-year period. "The
way that normal and abnormal blood pressures are defined for children
are --  it's based on their gender, it's based on their height
percentile and it's also based on their age.  So the challenge here is
that there's literally hundreds of normal and abnormal blood pressure
values for children."

Plus, high blood pressure is something doctors may not be looking for,
since hypertension is not normally associated with children.

In his study, Dr. Kaelber found that only a quarter of the children
with high blood pressure were diagnosed. "To try to simplify this as
much as possible, the more the child was like an adult, the more
likely it was that their blood pressure would have been picked up."







A young patient receives a blood pressure screeningIn other words,
doctors were more likely to catch the symptoms in children who are
taller, older and heavier.  But Dr. Kaelber found children with normal
weight and average height could also have high blood pressure.

Dr. Kaelber says his study should be a wake-up call for doctors to
screen children for high blood pressure and take action before they
develop other health complications. The study was published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association.

Video courtesy of the Journal of The American Medical Association






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