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.