3.1. Patient and control finding
Patients with CoA (n = 42) and healthy volunteers (n = 39) were included in this study. The mean age of the patients was 5.8 ± 4.5 years and there were 23 boys and 19 girls included in the study. No significant differences between CoA and healthy volunteers were detected with regard to sex, age, body mass index, or heart rate (p = 0.88, p = 0.59, p = 0.26, p = 0.20). Clinical and demographic characteristics of the patients are summarized in Table 1. Among the CoA group, four patients had ventricular septal defects, one had an atrioventricular septal defect, and one had partial anomalous pulmonary venous return. In addition, two patients had mild aortic stenosis.
In CoA group was significantly higher the mean systolic blood pressure in comparison to the control group (109.41±16.20 mmHg and 97.23±10.10mmHg, respectively; p < .001). Arterial hypertension was found in 14 (33.3%) children from the hypertensive CoA group, the remaining 22 children (52.3%) in the CoA group were normotensive. Of the 27 patients that underwent surgery, five patients underwent catheter angiography and 10 patients underwent both surgical and catheter angiography. The median time from CoA repair to the present study was 3.74 ±2.3 years. The operating age of the patients was 7.4 ± 21 months. Repairs were performed by subclavian flap in 17 patients and by end-to-end anastomosis in 10 patients. A bicuspid aortic valve was present in 20 (47.6%) patients in the CoA group.