Tests often fail to diagnose high BP in kids with chronic kidney disease

Washington, Nov 13 (ANI): A new American study suggests that medical tests often fail to diagnose high blood pressure in kids with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

The report indicates that those children, who do not receive proper treatment for hypertension, are likely to develop an enlarged heart, or left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), which often causes progressive heart disease.

Children with CKD having hypertension often develop LVH, but researchers saw that many kids with CKD and normal blood pressure also developed the condition

Mark Mitsnefes from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and his colleagues assessed nearly 200 children to find if they actually had high blood pressure levels that went undiagnosed.

These children were asked to wear blood pressure monitoring devices.

Dr. Mitsnefes and his team found that almost one third of children with CKD showed normal blood pressure readings but actually had high levels of blood pressure, a condition called masked hypertension.

Also, Children with masked hypertension were four times more prone to developing LVH than children with normal blood pressure.

Dr. Mitsnefes said: "We hope that by recognizing and treating masked hypertension we might reverse LVH and delay or prevent the development of more serious cardiac complications in these children." (ANI)