By Harvey McConnell
Persistent cardiac anomalies are being found among infants who are born to women who are HIV-1 positive. Researchers in a multicentre study in the United States declare that irrespective of their HIV-1 status, infants born to women infected with HIV-1 have substantially worse cardiac function than other infants.
This suggests that the uterine environment has an important role in postnatal cardiovascular abnormalities. Dr Steven Lipshultz from Golisaon Children’s Hospital at the University of Rochester, and colleagues, aimed to assess LV structure and function characterized by echocardiography during the first five years of life in children born to women infected with HIV-1. The researchers point out that there is a rapid increase in the number of children born to women infected with HIV-1 worldwide.
This is allied with improved care which is lengthening survival in children infected with HIV-1 in developed nations. As the number of children infected with HIV-1 increases, so does the importance of understanding the course of pediatric HIV-1 disease. Earlier research has shown that subclinical cardiac abnormalities develop early in children infected with HIV-1, and that they are frequent, persistent, and often progressive. In the present study, researchers measured cardiovascular function by echocardiography every four to six months for up to five years in 600 infants born to women infected with HIV-1. Data were available for 93 infants infected with HIV-1 and 463 uninfected infants (the internal control group).
In addition, 195 healthy children born to mothers who were not infected with HIV-1 were also studied (the external control group). It was found that children infected with HIV-1 had a higher heart rate by 10 beats per minute at all ages than did children in the internal control group.
Children born with HIV-1 and children in the internal control group had impaired cardiac structure and function up to the age of eight months. After that, there was no difference between children in the internal and external control groups.
However, children born with HIV-1 had impaired heart function due to a lack in reduction of size of the left ventricle for the first 20 months of life.
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