Prematurity-Related Hypertension in Children and Adolescents born at the Baruch Padeh medical center, Poriya, Israel, between the years 2009-2018

ABSTRACT:

· Introduction: Hypertension (HTN), defined as blood pressure (BP) equal to or above 95th percentile for Age.Heigh.Gender.,

· hypertension has a prevalence of up to 5-8% in children. It is a well-known risk factor for cardiovascular diseases affecting the heart, brain and kidneys. HTN presenting at a younger age correlates with increased severity and likelihood of finding an underlying reason for it, therefore defining it as secondary HTN. That being said, primary HTN can be identified in about 20% of HTN cases in children.

· Recent studies reveal that premature infants (<37 weeks) commonly have higher BP, leading to the possibility of a certain connection between the prematurity an hypertension in future/

· Objective: investigate the existence of an association between prematurity at birth and the development of HTN.

Study design and Methods: 87 prematurely born children were examined by criteria of BP measurements at birth and at present in order to evaluate their tendency for HTN in respect to the extent of their prematurity(2009-2018).

Results: Those children presented an increased prevalence of both infantile and childhood HTN (16.7% and 20.7% respectively), compared to general population. A negative correlation between birth week and childhood BP values was found, meaning that BP increased monotonically by earlier gestational age, and was found to be statistically significant in diastolic BP.

Conclusions: Prematurely born individuals are at a higher risk to develop childhood HTN. These results encourage the initiation of screening programs for this population.

Key words: Gestational age, Prematurity, Blood pressure, Hypertension, Cardiovascular diseases