Serum vitamin A and other nutritional parameters in children with congenital heart disease

Abstract

Objective: To compare the weight for age, the serum albumin and vitamin A of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) with those of age and sex matched controls without CHD. Methods: Consecutive children diagnosed to have CHD by echocardiography who were afebrile two weeks prior were recruited. Subjects who had bronchopneumonia were noted. Their weights, haematocrit, serum albumin and vitamin A were measured. Variables were compared between subjects and controls. Vitamin A was measured by high performance chromatography. Results: Thirty eight subjects with mean age of 3.6 ± 4.3 years and 40 controls with mean age of 3.6 ± 4.8 years were recruited. Fifteen (39.5 %) subjects had bronchopneumonia while 14/38 (36.8 %) and 4/36(11.1 %) subjects and controls respectively were undernourished, p = 0.014. The mean serum vitamin A values in subjects 0.86 ± 0.13 mmol/l and controls 0.87 ± 0.16 mmol/l was not significantly different, P = 0.76. Serum albumin of subjects and controls were 3.5 ± 0.5 and 3.6 ± 0.43 respectively, p = 0.60 Conclusion: There was no significant difference in serum vitamin A and albumin in subjects and controls. However, significantly more children with CHD than controls were undernourished.