The Classification and Diagnosis of the Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy: Statement from the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy (ISSHP)

The literature relating to classification of the hypertensive disorders in pregnancy and diagnostic definitions of each hypertensive category has been and remains confusing to clinicians and investigators (1). One encounters an assortment of terms and schemes, some quite complex and detailed, and on occasion, the same term (e.g., pregnancy-induced hypertension) is used to include different disorders by various authors. This lack of consensus on classification and diagnosis is one reason for controversies in a variety of areas, including counseling, management, and documenting immediate and remote outcomes. Cognizant of these problems, the Council of the ISSHP appointed a committee to consider these issues, adopting many of their recommendations at the 12th World Congress in Paris, France, in July 2000. The following is a summary of the adopted report. The first charge to this committee, formed in October 1998, was to monitor the progress of the two working groups that were in the process of updating previous reports, one for the Australasian Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy (ASSHP) and the other for the National High Blood Pressure Education Program (NHBPEP) in the United States. These have now been published (2,3) and have been considered along with currently published criteria (e.g., the older ISSHP (4), WHO (3, and Canadian Hypertension Society (6) reports).