The authors investigated the incidence of arterial hypertension during acute glomerulonephritis in adults and during the period after glomerulonephritis. Hypertension was recorded in 34% of 126 patients treated on account of acute glomerulonephritis (mean age 23 +/- 6 years). Only in six patients the diastolic pressure was higher than 15.3 kPa. At the end of hospitalization hypertension persisted in four subjects. After a three-year interval following glomerulonephritis hypertension was recorded in 15% of 119 examined subjects. In 7 subjects it was isolated, in another 11 associated with a pathological finding in urine. Four to twenty years after acute glomerulonephritis (mean 11.5 years) in a group of 81 subjects hypertension was recorded in 31%. In six patients it was an isolated finding, in 19 instances it was associated with a pathological finding in urine and possibly impaired renal function. In adult age transient hypertension is associated with about one third of all cases of acute glomerulonephritis. Subsequent presence of hypertension in these patients is frequent and increases with the follow up period. Without an invasive examination it is not possible differentiate secondary hypertension from essential hypertension, in particular in subjects with isolated hypertension or hypertension associated with mild proteinuria.

Keywords: Acute Disease; Adolescent; Adult; Female; Glomerulonephritis /complications/; Humans; Hypertension, Renal /etiology/; Male; Middle Aged; Prospective Studies; Retrospective Studies