A recent Swedish study found children born with heart defects are 8.7 times more likely to die of heart failure.
The study, published in the AHA journal Circulation, followed 89,532 people born with heart defects between 1930 and 2017 with a control group of 890,469 born without heart defects.
"Though heart failure is extremely rare in young people, any occurrence in young congenital heart defect survivors signals a need for better screening and follow-up, starting early and continuing throughout their lifetime," study author Dr. Niklas Bergh, a cardiologist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden, told the American Heart Association. "Increased awareness of the high risk of heart failure in this population may lead to an earlier diagnosis as well as more appropriate treatment, which may have implications for survival."
Here are four study findings:
- During an average 25 year follow-up, 7.8 percent of people with congenital heart defects were diagnosed with heart failure, compared with 1.1 percent in the control group.
- The lifetime risk for heart failure was 8.7 times higher for people born with heart defects.
- People born with more complex defects faced threefold higher risk of heart failure compared to those with less complex defects.
- Age makes a big difference. Those 17 and younger with heart defects faced 220 times higher risk than their peers, while those aged 60 to 69 only had five times higher risk.
"When I see a patient who is 40 years old, they are basically a 66-year-old in terms of cardiovascular risk," Curt Daniels, MD, director of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program at Ohio State University and Nationwide Children's Hospital, both in Columbus, said in the article. He was not involved in the study. "There is such a lack of attention to this population. We need to understand that these patients are unique and different. We need research for how to evaluate and treat heart failure in this group earlier in life."