Perioperative Stroke Examined in Children Receiving Heart Transplants

WEDNESDAY, July 13, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Among children receiving a cardiac transplant, Black children have a lower incidence of perioperative stroke, but their long-term mortality rate following stroke is higher compared with White children, according to a study published online July 13 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Laura J. Lehman, M.D., M.P.H., from Boston Children’s Hospital, and colleagues studied children who underwent their first heart transplant between January 1994 and September 2019 using the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. The association between race and ethnicity and perioperative stroke was examined, and the association between race and ethnicity and mortality was assessed among perioperative stroke survivors.

The researchers found that 3 percent of the 8,224 children who had a first cardiac transplant had a perioperative stroke. The odds of perioperative stroke were lower for Black versus White children (adjusted odds ratio, 0.68; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.46 to 0.996). Mortality rates following perioperative stroke were similar for Black and White children in the first six months (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.99; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.44 to 2.26), but were higher for Black versus White children beyond six months (adjusted hazard ratio, 3.36; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.22 to 9.22).

“Black children had 32 percent lower odds of perioperative stroke compared with White children,” the authors write. “These results were surprising given the previously reported higher rate of pediatric stroke among Black children compared with White children.”

Abstract/Full Text