MONDAY, May 3, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The incidence of hypertension is 12 times higher in children with surgical repair of congenital heart disease (CHD) versus healthy, matched children without CHD, according to a study published online April 8 in JAMA Network Open.
Jason H. Greenberg, M.D., from the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues used Canadian administrative data to identify 3,600 children with surgical repair of CHD and 36,000 matched children without CHD.
The researchers found that during 9.8 years of follow-up, 12.4 percent children with surgical repair of CHD developed hypertension versus 1.1 percent in the matched control group (incidence rate of hypertension for children with surgery versus controls: 141.3 versus 11.1 per 10,000 person-years). Children with index surgical dates when aged younger than 150 days had a higher risk for hypertension compared with those who had surgical dates at an age of 150 days or older. Additionally, a higher risk for hypertension was seen in children with more complex surgery, particularly children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (49 of 140; 35.0 percent), and in children who received dialysis during the index cardiac surgery hospitalization (22 of 126; 17.5 percent; hazard ratio, 1.67).
"For now, we recommend that children who have cardiac repair as infants be monitored more closely for hypertension throughout their lives," a coauthor said in a statement.
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