The performance of blood pressure-to-height ratio as a screening measure for identifying children and adolescents with hypertension

BACKGROUND: The blood pressure-to-height ratio (BPHR) has been shown to be an accurate index for screening hypertension in children and adolescents. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to perform a meta-analysis to assess the performance of BPHR for the assessment of hypertension. METHODS: Electronic and manual searches were performed to identify studies of the BPHR. After methodological quality assessment and data extraction, pooled estimates of the sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, diagnostic odds ratio, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and summary receiver operating characteristics were assessed systematically. The extent of heterogeneity for it was assessed. RESULTS: Six studies were identified for analysis. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio and diagnostic odds ratio values of BPHR, for assessment of hypertension, were 96% [95% confidence interval (CI)=0.95-0.97], 90% (95% CI=0.90-0.91), 10.68 (95% CI=8.03-14.21), 0.04 (95% CI=0.03-0.07) and 247.82 (95% CI=114.50-536.34), respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.9472. CONCLUSION: The BPHR had higher diagnostic accuracies for identifying hypertension in children and adolescents.