Effect of congenital heart disease on the recurrence of cough variant asthma in children

BACKGROUND: The research into the recurrence of cough variant asthma (CVA) in congenital heart disease (CHD) are few in number. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of CHD on the risk of the recurrence of CVA. METHODS: This study was a retrospective cohort study of 489 children with CVA aged between one and 14 years, of whom 67 had CHD complicated with CVA and 134 had CVA without CHD at a ratio of 1:2 according to age, sex and index year. The adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of CVA recurrence in both the CHD cohort and the non-CHD cohort was determined by multivariate analysis using the Cox proportional hazard regression model. RESULTS: Adjusting for CHD classification, Mycoplasma pneumonia (MP) infection and immunoglobulin E (IgE) sensitization, the recurrence hazard of CVA in the complex congenital heart disease (CCHD) group (aHR = 3.281; 95% CI 1.648–6.530; P < 0.01) was significantly higher than that in the simple congenital heart disease group (aHR = 2.555; 95% CI 1.739–3.752; P < 0.01). Further, children with IgE sensitization (aHR = 2.172; 95% CI 1.482–3.184; P < 0.01) had a higher recurrence hazard of CVA than those without IgE sensitization, and children with MP infection (aHR = 1.777; 95% CI 1.188–2.657; P < 0.01) had a higher recurrence hazard of CVA than those without the MP infection. CONCLUSION: The hazard of recurrent CVA is higher in children with CHD, especially in the CCHD children. In addition, those children with IgE sensitization or a MP infection had an increased hazard of recurrent CVA.