Neurocognitive disorders amongst patients with congenital heart disease undergoing procedures in childhood

Lee H Sterling; Aihua Liu; Elie Ganni; Judith Therrien; Adrian B Dancea; Liming Guo; Ariane J Marelli

doi:10.1016/j.ijcard.2021.05.001

Neurocognitive disorders amongst patients with congenital heart disease undergoing procedures in childhood

Int J Cardiol. 2021 Aug 1:336:47-53. doi: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2021.05.001. Epub 2021 May 18.

Authors

Lee H Sterling¹, Aihua Liu², Elie Ganni³, Judith Therrien², Adrian B Dancea⁴, Liming Guo², Ariane J Marelli⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
² McGill Adult Unit for Congenital Heart Disease Excellence, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
³ Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
⁵ McGill Adult Unit for Congenital Heart Disease Excellence, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada. Electronic address: ariane.marelli@mcgill.ca.

PMID: 33965470
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2021.05.001

Abstract

Background: Amongst children with congenital heart disease (CHD), earlier age of repair improves cardiovascular outcomes. The effects of early intervention on neurodevelopment remains unclear. We assessed the association between early life repair, cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and the incidence of neurocognitive disorders (NCD) amongst CHD patients.

Methods: We created two retrospective cohorts from the Quebec CHD Database; with data from 1988 to 2010. Complexity of reparative procedures for CHD lesions were used as the proxy of CPB exposure with more complex procedure means longer exposure to CPB. Study Population 1 included pediatric patients with a single reparative procedure and compared patients with complex (long CBP) versus isolated shunt (short CBP) lesions. To assess the effects of CPB alone in Study Population 2 we compared patients with isolated atrial septal defects (ASD) who had surgical (short CBP) versus percutaneous (no CBP) repairs. The primary endpoint for both cohorts was development of an NCD.

Results: In Study population 1, 1174 patients underwent complex surgical repair and 1620 had a shunt closure. The incidence of NCDs was 2.45/100 person-years in the complex surgery group, and 2.08/100 person-years in the shunt closure group. The following were associated with increased risk of developing a NCD: surgical complexity (Hazard Ratio [HR] = 1.20, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.01-1.42), younger age at intervention (AAI) (HR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.16-1.25), male sex (HR = 1.91, 95% CI: 1.61-2.27), and later calendar year at intervention (HR = 1.06, 95% CI: 1.04-1.07). Study population 2 had 527 isolated ASD patients; 202 underwent surgical repair and 325 had percutaneous closure. The incidence of NCDs was not statistically different between groups. Male sex (HR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.08-2.89) and younger AAI (HR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.06-1.25) were associated with increased NCD risk.

Conclusion: Increased surgical complexity, male sex and younger AAI were associated with increased risk of NCDs in pediatric CHD patients. Surveillance protocols should be considered to identify NCDs in CHD patients after cardiac intervention.

Keywords: Cognitive impairment; Congenital heart disease; Pediatric.

MeSH terms

Cardiopulmonary Bypass
Child
Heart Defects, Congenital* / diagnosis
Heart Defects, Congenital* / epidemiology
Heart Defects, Congenital* / surgery
Humans
Male
Neurocognitive Disorders
Quebec / epidemiology
Retrospective Studies