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The Prevalence of Hypertension in Children with Spina Bifida
Acta Pediatrica, 03/08/2011
Mazur L et al. – Children with spina bifida have a significantly higher prevalence of hypertension than children in the general population. Age, gender, and height based norms are important for the early identification and treatment of hypertension in children.
Methods- All patients (n=123) seen in the Spina Bifida Clinic at Shriners Hospital in Houston, Texas were reviewed for age, gender, ethnicity, type and level of neural tube defect, height, weight, and blood pressure.
- Hypertension was defined as a systolic blood pressure or diastolic blood pressure >95th percentile for age, gender, and height on >3 occasions.
- Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and from a Houston–based study were used for comparison.
- 51 (41.5%) patients were hypertensive.
- This was significantly higher than the 3% prevalence in the national controls, p < 0.001 and the 4.5% prevalence in the Houston controls, p < 0.001.
- Maximum body mass index increased the risk for hypertension, Odds Ratio 1.018, 95% Confidence Interval (1.005, 1.031), p=0.005).
