Systolic blood pressure and systolic hypertension in adolescence of atomic bomb survivors exposed in utero.

Annual medical examinations were conducted during adolescence for the in utero clinical study sample subjects exposed prenatally to the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Systolic blood pressure and several anthropometric measurements were recorded during these examinations. For 1014 persons exposed in utero, two types of longitudinal analyses were performed, for a total of 7029 observations (6.93 observations per subject) of systolic blood pressure (continuous data) and systolic hypertension (binary data) for persons aged 9 to 19 years. Body mass index (BMI) and/or body weight were considered in the analyses as potential confounders. For the measurements of systolic blood pressure, the common dose effect was 2.09 mmHg per Gy and was significant (P = 0.017). The dose by trimester interaction was suggestive (P = 0.060). A significant radiation dose effect was found in the second trimester (P = 0.001), with an estimated 4.17 mmHg per Gy, but in the first and third trimesters, radiation dose effects were not significant (P > 0.50). For prevalence of systolic hypertension, the radiation dose effect was significant (P = 0.009); the odds ratio at 1 Gy was 2.23 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.23, 4.04], and the dose by trimester interaction was not significant (P = 0.778). The dose response of systolic hypertension had no dose threshold, with a threshold point estimate of 0 Gy (95% CI: <0.0, 1.1 Gy). The dose response for systolic blood pressure was most pronounced in the second trimester, the most active organogenesis period for the organs relevant to blood pressure.