Editorials Measurement of Blood Pressure in Children

B lood pressure measurement became a routine partof the pediatric physical examination only 25years ago following publication of the first Task Force Report on Blood Pressure Control in Children.1 Since that time, additional Task Force reports in 19872 and 19973 have established the currently used standards for blood pressure and defined hypertension in children ac-cording to gender, age, and height. Prior to the first Task Force report, blood pressure was measured infrequently in children. There was a general feeling that virtually all hypertension in children was secondary to some other disease process, ie, primarily renal, and most cases of hypertension, regardless of degree of blood pressure elevation, were aggressively evaluated and treated. As pediatricians began to measure blood pres-sure in their patients on a regular basis, it became clear that many cases of mild to moderate hypertension were no