Blood pressure percentiles in Turkish children and adolescents

INTRODUCTION: Pediatric hypertension, a public health concern, is now commonly known worldwide to be an early risk factor for cardiovascular and renal morbidity and mortality. Early detection of hypertension is of utmost importance to help reduce serious complications. Several distributions of country-spesific blood pressure (BP) percentiles have been established worldwide. The aim of this study is to determine BP percentiles in healthy Turkish children aged 2 to 18 years.
METHODS: In this cross sectional study, BP was measured in 4984 random children and adolescents aged 2-17 years. The 50th, 90th and 95th percentile of BP percentiles were constracted for sex, age and height with the use polynomial regression model. BP percentiles at median height were compared with the US Fourth Report references.
RESULTS: The normative values of systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) increased with age at both genders and varied by sex. At median height, the age-specific differences in 90th percentile of SBP tended to be heigher in boys than in girls at all ages. DBP values in girls was higher than in boys till the age of 9 years, after which boys demonstrated higher values compared to girls.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The age and height specific reference BP values constructed in this study is novel Turkish reference in children and adolescents. BP values are lower than existing US reference values.