Abstract
Objective :
Congenital cardiac outflow defects (COD) are the largest group of
congenital heart defects, with ventricular septal defect (VSD) as the
most prevalent phenotype. Increased maternal age, excessive oxidative
stress and inflammation are involved in the pathophysiology and enhance
telomere length (TL) shortening. We aim to study the association between
periconception maternal TL, as future predictive biomarker, and the risk
of having a child with COD.Design :
HAVEN-study, a multicenter case-control triad study conducted in the
Netherlands.Setting and population306 case mothers of a child with COD and 424 control mothers of a child
without a congenital malformation were selected.
MethodsTL was estimated, on DNA from venous blood samples, by qPCR.
Multivariable logistic regression was used to compute crude and adjusted
odds ratios (OR) per standard deviation (SD) decrease between maternal
T/S ratio and COD and VSD risk.