Pediatric cardiology research in 1990: a review of abstracts submitted to the Society for Pediatric Research, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.

We assessed pediatric cardiology research by reviewing pediatric cardiology abstracts submitted in 1990 to the Society of Pediatric Research, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Heart Association national meetings. Included were accepted and rejected studies. Abstracts were reviewed for disease being studied, methodology used to answer the research question, study design, and acceptance/rejection. Abstracts were analyzed from 123 institutions, 81 American and 42 foreign. Out of 423 abstracts, 307 (72.6%) were clinical and the remainder were basic science investigations. Slightly more than half of the clinical submissions were related to congenital heart disease. Coronary artery disease and inflammatory diseases accounted for 12% of clinical submissions. Echocardiography, clinical outcome measures, and electrophysiology were the most common research methodologies. Almost 80% of basic science research was performed in normal tissues; animal physiology, fetal physiology, and cellular/biochemical studies were the most common methodologies. With regard to study design, half of the clinical studies were retrospective and only 6% were either prospective epidemiologic or prospective controlled intervention trials. For basic sciences, 38% of abstracts were descriptions of phenomena and 62% were hypothesis testing, with developmental hypotheses being most common. Acceptance rates favored higher quality study design. However, areas of greatest interest to cardiologists, congenital heart disease, cardiomyopathy, and electrophysiology, had poorer quality study design than did other areas. We have shown broad interest in pediatric cardiology research. However, clinical studies frequently were retrospective or had uncontrolled study designs. Basic science research was performed at a small number of institutions and emphasized either description of phenomena or developmental biology of normal tissues.