Children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) exhibit blood pressure-independent left ventricular (LV) dysfunction, which leads to increased systolic myocardial wall stress (MWS) and possibly to LV hypertrophy later in life, say researchers. In their study of 92 children, Gu et al. found that MWS was higher in children with CKD than in healthy controls and increased across stages of CKD, despite no significant difference in blood pressure between the groups.