Table 8.

Guiding criteria for the differential diagnosis between essential hypertension and secondary forms of hypertension

	Essential forms	Secondary forms
Onset	Most frequent in children and adolescents	Often early
Discovery	Casual during annual control visit	Often underlying disease already known
Blood pressure values	Moderately elevated	Often markedly elevated
Associated symptoms	None	According to specific disorder
Family history	Often positive for essential hypertension	Familiar forms are rare
Overweight	Often present	Not frequent
Femoral pulse	Present	Reduced or absent with coarctation of the aorta
Difference between BP values in upper and lower extremities	Not present	Present with coarctation of the aorta
Blood sodium, potassium and creatinine levels, urinalysis, thyroid hormones	Normal	Altered in some specific disorders
Echocardiography	Normal (left ventricular hypertrophy may be present)	Allows diagnosis of coarctation of the aorta (left ventricular hypertrophy may be present)