Agreement on reporting of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in children

The use of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) can improve the accuracy of paediatric BP measurement and may better correlate with end-organ injury than office BP measurement. However, the interpretation of ABPM may be influenced by several variables. We sought to ascertain the agreement among three paediatric nephrologists when reporting 92 ABPM sessions performed on patients aged 5 to 18 years. All three nephrologists were in agreement on the presence or absence of hypertension in 64% of cases. They were less likely to concur about records where hypertension was borderline or if the ABP record contained fewer BP readings. These results highlight the need for evidence-based consensus regarding the interpretation of ABPM in children.