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The prevalence of hypertension in U.S. children and adolescents appears to be increasing with the growing obesity epidemic. Ohio researchers sought to determine the rate of undiagnosed hypertension among 14,187 children and adolescents (age range, 3–18 years) who had at least three well visits at the community-based clinics of an academic medical center from 1999 to 2006. For their analysis, the investigators evaluated data from the network’s electronic medical record (EMR).
A total of 507 patients (3.6%) met criteria for hypertension, based on elevated BP readings during three or more visits. However, only 131 patients (26% of those with hypertension) had diagnoses of either hypertension (80 patients) or elevated blood pressure (51 patients…