Pediatric Cardiology
04/18/2002
By Robert Short
Measurement of plasma nitrate level is useful for the evaluation of pulmonary hypertension in children over four months old with congenital heart disease, both before and after surgery.
Dr Y Ikemoto and colleagues at the Department of Pediatrics, Kansai Medical University, Osaka, Japan, studied 48 healthy children (aged five days to 12 years) and 46 children with congenital heart disease, preoperatively (aged four months to 12 years).
Plasma nitrate is the stable end product of nitric oxide, the endothelium-derived relaxing factor. The study showed that plasma nitrate in healthy children decreased with age, from one month to one year, and then remained constant until the age of 12 years (the oldest age studied). However, plasma nitrate was significantly increased in 22 children with congenital heart disease with pulmonary hypertension compared with age-matched healthy control children and was significantly correlated with pulmonary-to-systemic pressure ratio.
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