Abstract P162: Comorbid Asthma And Allergies Are Common In Children With Congenital Heart Disease And Related To Decreased Physical Functioning

Abstract

Background: Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most common birth defect and asthma and allergies are common conditions in childhood. The co-occurrence of these is not well understood but may be increased due to similar risk factors or immune dysregulation related to early life inflammation. This study aimed to compare the prevalence of asthma and allergies between children with CHD and their unaffected siblings and assess their impact on physical functioning in children with CHD. Methods: Parent-reported data was collected on allergy medications and asthma diagnosis, physical functioning (PedsQL physical health), and characteristics in children (age 12-17) with surgically treated CHD and an unaffected sibling (age 11-18). The McNemar test compared the comorbidities between siblings. Among children with CHD, logistic and linear regression were used to estimate the association of each comorbidity with child characteristics and physical functioning respectively. Models included CHD severity, SES, age, BMI, and sex. Results: Among 218 sibling pairs, the children with CHD had a higher, but not statistically significant, prevalence of asthma and allergies (Figure 1). In all 497 children with CHD, single ventricle CHD had a 2.5 times greater odds of allergies compared with non-critical (95%CI=1.0,6.0) with no difference in asthma. Asthma was associated with decreased physical functioning (8.7 point decrease vs no asthma, 95%CI=-14.5,-2.9). Conclusions: Children with CHD and their siblings had similar levels of allergies and asthma. However, as symptoms of these conditions may overlap, studies should further investigate a possible link with CHD, especially given the lower physical health in patients with CHD and asthma.