Arterial stiffness in children and adolescents with masked and sustained hypertension

This study recruited 85 healthy children and adolescents, aged 6–18 years, from a school-based blood pressure (BP) screening study and performed office BP measurements, 24-h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (24-h ABPM) and 24-h pulse wave analysis. Prevalence of BP phenotypes was assessed, factors that may predict hypertension (HTN) in ABPM were examined and the effect of BP phenotypes, as well as school, office, and ambulatory BP parameters on pulse wave velocity (PWV), was investigated. Forty-five (54.9%) of the children were normotensives, 8 (9.7%) were white coat hypertensives (WCH), 19 (23.2%) had masked hypertension (MH), and 10 (12.2%) had sustained HTN. Estimated adjusted marginal means for 24-h PWV were 4.79 m/s (95% CI 4.65–4.94) for sustained hypertensives, 4.72 m/s (95% CI 4.62–4.82) for MH, 4.38 m/s (95% CI 4.23–4.54) for WCH, and 4.33 m/s (95% CI 4.26–4.40) for normotensives (sustained hypertensives versus normotensives and WCH, p