Target BP Goals in Children/Adolescents

Childhood hypertension (HTN), increasingly being detected and being prevalent, has become a significant public health problem not only posing a therapeutic challenge but also being associated with increased fatality and morbidity. Cutoffs for different age groups for the diagnosis, difficulties with accurate measurements in childhood, poor adherence to medication due to dependency, and absence of enough evidences for target organ damage of this disease, which is less prevalent in children when compared to adults, makes monitoring of HTN and of its associated morbidities more complicated in pediatric population. Predisposition to adult HTN and increased cardiovascular events in adults mandate the clinician to treat and monitor the childhood HTN more aggressively.[1-2]