Very low birthweight bronchopulmonary dysplasia survivors had similar cardiac outcomes to controls at six years to 14 years of age.

AIM

This study evaluated cardiac function and its associations with lung function and neonatal pulmonary morbidity in very low birthweight (VLBW) children, with and without severe radiographic bronchopulmonary dysplasia (radBPD), at school age.

METHODS

We examined 18 VLBW children with radBPD, 17 VLBW children without radBPD and 18 healthy term-born children using conventional echocardiography, tissue Doppler imaging, speckle tracking echocardiography and real-time three-dimensional echocardiography at six years to 14 years of age. Lung function was studied by impulse oscillometry. Plasma N-terminal-proBNP concentrations were measured.

RESULTS

Cardiac function and N-terminal-proBNP concentrations did not differ between the groups. No associations were found between cardiac function and neonatal dexamethasone, oxygen or ventilator therapies. In VLBW children, poorer reactance correlated with larger left ventricle (LV) end-systolic (Spearman's ρ = -0.45) and end-diastolic (ρ = -0.50) volumes and higher resistance correlated with higher LV dyssynchrony indexes, with ρ ranging from 0.37 to 0.48. Greater bronchodilation responses correlated with lower early diastolic myocardial relaxation velocities, with ρ ranging from 0.39 to 0.42.

CONCLUSION

BPD survivors had normal cardiac function at the age of six years to 14 years. No associations were found between neonatal pulmonary morbidity and cardiac parameters. Poorer lung function correlated modestly with LV echocardiographic parameters in VLBW children.