NEW YORK (Reuters Health), Aug 25 - Perinatal glucocorticoid therapy to reduce the incidence and severity of chronic lung disease in preterm infants does not appear to harm cardiac function in childhood, according to a retrospective Dutch study.
"Little is known about cardiac function in school-aged children who were born prematurely and were treated antenatally and/or neonatally with glucocorticoids," the researchers note in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Dr. Willem B. de Vries, from University Medical Center Utrecht, and colleagues investigated cardiac function in a group of prematurely born 7- to 10-year-old children who had been treated neonatally with either dexamethasone or hydrocortisone (n = 99) or treated only antenatally with betamethasone (n = 51).
These children were compared with a reference group of 43 prematurely born children who had not been exposed to perinatal glucocorticoid therapy.
According to the investigators, "No significant group differences were found for heart rate, blood pressure, biochemical features, intima-media thickness, or systolic or diastolic left ventricular function."
de Vries and colleagues caution, however, that the present study may have been conducted too early to reveal glucocorticoid-related adverse cardiovascular effects.
"Prolonged cardiac follow-up," they write, "is recommended in children who were neonatally treated with glucocorticoids, because animal studies show that the functional consequences of the structural myocardial abnormalities established during neonatal glucocorticoid therapy may become manifest only in adulthood."
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2008;162:738-744.
Last Updated: 2008-08-25 8:30:28 -0400 (Reuters Health)
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