Secondary hypertension prevalent in hypertensive children, especially girls

A recent study in China has found that secondary hypertension is still the most common type of hypertension among children, particularly in girls, during the past decade. The dominant cause of this condition is renal diseases, followed by rheumatic immune diseases.

In addition, more than four-fifths of inpatients with primary hypertension have obesity and obesity-related disorders, with a rising trend seen in the proportion.

Medical records from nine tertiary children’s hospitals in China from 2020 to 2020 were used in this retrospective analysis. Overall, 5,847 paediatric inpatients (aged <18 years) who had been diagnosed with hypertension were included in the study. The researchers then obtained information on clinical characteristics of each patient from their first admission records.

Secondary hypertension remained the dominant type of hypertension in children during the previous decade, with the proportion increasing from 51.2 percent during 2010‒2015 to 59.8 percent during 2016‒2020. Neurologic disorders were the main causes of secondary hypertension in children aged 0‒2 years. This changed to renal diseases after 3 years of age.

Compared with primary hypertension, secondary hypertension presented more frequently in girls (43.1 percent vs 23.3 percent) and children aged <5 years (32.2 percent vs 2.1 percent). In addition, more than four-fifths of children with primary hypertension had obesity and obesity-related comorbidities. The proportion of comorbidity clusters rose in the past decade from 79.7 percent to 85.2 percent.