title: Early detection by non-invasive monitoring of abnormally elevated systolic blood pressure in newborns with a positive familiarity for hypertension.
abstract: This study investigates 263 full-term clinically healthy newborn babies: subdivided into two groups depending on a positive (113 individuals) or negative (150 subjects) family history for hypertension. The babies were comparable for body weight and statural height and equipartitioned into males and females. The infants underwent a non-invasive, automated monitoring of blood pressure during the first three days of their life, according to protocol in which the systolic and diastolic measurements were performed at 1 min intervals over 15 minutes. The babies of the two groups showed superimposable mean values for systolic and diastolic blood pressure. However, the neonates with a positive familiarity for hypertension showed a higher number of systolic readings above the reference limit of 90 mmHg. The higher incidence of the abnormally-elevated systolic values (> 13%) in babies with a positive familiarity for hypertension was seen to be significant, suggesting that their blood pressure pattern is characterized by a larger variability at least in the systolic component. Such a wider variability may be regarded as a phenotypic expression of the genetic predisposition to hypertension, whose risk can be detected by a short-term monitoring of BP soon after the birth.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Puericultura, Università La Sapienza, Roma.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Menghetti
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mucedola
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Marulli
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Montaleone
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cugini
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors; D013599:Systole