FRIDAY, Oct. 21 (HealthDay News) -- For children who undergo liver transplant (LT), there is a high prevalence of elevated blood pressure (BP) at five to 10 years post-transplant, and this can be predicted by age at LT, decreased calculated glomerular filtration rate (cGFR), and recent steroid use, according to a study published online Oct. 12 in the American Journal of Transplantation.
Valerie A. McLin, from University Hospitals Geneva, and colleagues estimated the prevalence of elevated BP and its predictive factors in 815 long-term survivors of pediatric LT (five years to ≤10 years post-LT). Data were collected from participants enrolled in the BP arm of the Studies in Pediatric Liver Transplantation. Automated BP was measured at annual visits, and was categorized as normal, borderline, or elevated according to standard criteria. BP was considered elevated if patients were taking antihypertensive medications.
The investigators found that elevated BP measurements five to 10 years post-LT had a prevalence of 17.5 to 27.5 percent. At a later follow-up visit, 62.5 percent of the patients had at least one additional elevated BP. In multivariate analysis, age at transplant, use of steroids at the last BP measurement, and cGFR at the last BP measurement were predictive of elevated BP.
"This study demonstrates that elevated BP measurements exist in as many as 27.5 percent of pediatric LT patients aged 5 years or more and at least five years post-LT," the authors write.
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