2.1. Study subjects
This prospective and cross-sectional study was approved by our
hospital’s local ethics committee (2014 / 25-30). Signed written
informed consents were obtained from all parents. The patient group
included children who underwent intervention due to CoA that visited the
pediatric cardiology outpatient clinic between June 2013 and June 2014.
Interventions were surgical or involved percutaneous balloon angioplasty
or both. Demographic and anthropometric characteristics, including
patient’s age, gender, body mass index, time of operation, type of
operation, duration of follow-up, blood pressure, conventional
echocardiography and 2D-STE were evaluated. Healthy volunteers of the
same age and gender were included as a control group. These included
individuals with no structural heart disease who had been referred to
the pediatric cardiology outpatient clinic for cardiac evaluation with
echocardiographic examination for murmurs and chest pain.
The patient group was divided into a normotensive and hypertensive CoA
subgroup. Hypertension according to the standard blood pressure
measurement was calculated as a mean value from three consecutive
measurements obtained in 3-min intervals. Blood pressure (BP)
measurements at the right arm were obtained using a cuff
sphygmomanometer (Omron M1, Omron Healthcare Co, Kyoto, Japan). In
addition, patients’ hypertension was confirmed from previous records. In
some patients, blood pressure could not be measured due to agitation and
was, therefore, recorded as ‘unknown’. Exclusion criteria were
insufficient images and patients with additional heart disease, such as
single ventricle physiology, systolic dysfunction, a pacemaker,
additional chronic disease or rhythm problems.