Is Down Syndrome Related to Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension? A Comparative Study

Down syndrome (DS) is a genetic impairment associated with comorbidities such as Congenital Heart Disease (CHD). Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is a complication of CHD in most patients. Due to insufficient documents about the prevalence of PAH in DS with CHDs compared to non-DS (NDS)+CHD patients, this study aimed to compare the prevalence of PAH between DS-CHD and NDS-CHD patients. This is a cross-sectional study conducted on DS-CHD patients referred to the Pediatric and Congenital Cardiology Division at Imam Reza training hospital in Mashhad, Iran, between April 2015 and February 2016. The comparison group included NDS-CHD children matched in terms of age and gender. A comprehensive Echocardiography was run for all patients to determine the types of CHD and pulmonary arterial pressure. Seventy-seven patients were enrolled in the study (47 in the DS-CHD group and 30 in the NDS-CHD group). 48.9% of the DS-CHD patients and 23.3% of the NDS-CHD group developed PAH, which revealed a significantly higher rate of PH among DS-CHD patients (P=0.025). Our findings denote a higher prevalence of PAH among DS-CHD patients compared to NDS-CHD patients. Such an observation is a meaningful warning for DS patients to take early necessary medical or corrective therapies for CHD in order to prevent complications and irreversible pulmonary vascular disease