Update on the pharmacologic treatment of hypertension in pediatrics.

J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). 2012; 14:383-387. ©2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The past decade of investigation into the pharmacologic treatment of hypertension in children has been rewarding. The studies have shown that blood pressure medications effectively reduce blood pressure in children with hypertension and that these agents are generally well tolerated with few treatment-related adverse effects. While we have advanced our capacity to make rational therapeutic decisions, future efforts must be directed towards comparing the effectiveness of the different classes of antihypertensive agents and studies evaluating the impact of antihypertensive agents on outcome.