(29 - Saturday) Effects of Cardiac Surgery on Anthropometric Growth Measures of Children with Down syndrome and Failure to Thrive. Observational control study
Objective: to assess the effect of cardiac surgery on growth catch-up of DS children with failure to thrive and CHD and investigate other causes of FTT in DS children.
Method: We conducted a retrospective observational study in tertiary cardiac center from 2015 to 2018. We included all cases of DS diagnosed with CHD and FTT who completed a one-year follow-up after cardiac surgery. We divided the cases into two groups; “control group” includes children who normalized their growth parameters and “underweight group” includes those who remained in FTT category during the follow up period. We compared both groups for multiple risk factors
Result: most of DS had FTT upon surgery. 50% of cases completed one-year follow-up including 29 (60%) in the control group and 19 (40%) in underweight group. Within 6 months post-surgery, the control group though did not reach yet normalization of growth parameters, demonstrated statically significant improvement in weight for age, weight Z-score in compared to underweight group. Within 12 months post-surgery, the control group achieved normalization of growth parameters and continue to show more statistically significant differences in growth parameters. Both groups had comparable post operation course. Univariate analysis of possible peri-operative risk factors showed no difference between both groups except for presence of untreated subclinical hypothyroidism in 58% of the underweight group versus 17% in control group (p=0.005)
Conclusion: FTT in DS patient is multifactorial which needs thorough investigation and work up by multidisciplinary team. Cardiac surgery may not guarantee the improvement of growth parameters.
