[Juvenile arterial hypertension and body surface area. Initial results of a longitudinal epidemiologic study].

An epidemiological study has been carried out on a group of 622 students (10 to 13 years old) from a secondary school in Naples. Aims of the present work were: the evaluation of the prevalence of hypertension in an adolescent population; the association with familial hypertension and obesity; the persistence of high blood pressure values at follow-up. Blood pressure data obtained in these subjects by the use of a standard evaluation scale based on body surface percentiles were compared with those obtained by two major current methods used for the definition of "normal" blood pressure values in pediatric age. The method based on body surface percentiles has shown the highest specificity. The prevalence of hypertension, as detected by this method, has been of 3,5% as compared to 12,9% and to 9,5% of the other two methods. In a follow-up at one year, while the percentage of hypertensive students remained unchanged in the group detected by the method of body surface percentiles, it decreased from 12,9% to 9,3% and from 9,5% to 7,8% in the other two groups. The high prevalence of obesity and familial hypertension observed in these young hypertensive subjects suggest the possibility of selecting, by body surface percentiles, well defined group of subjects at risk, characterized by borderline hypertension, high grade of familial aggregation, high prevalence of obesity and by the persistence of hypertension at the follow-up.