Short- and long-term adverse effects of cocaine abuse during pregnancy on the heart development

Abstract

The effect of cocaine on the developing fetus is a topic of considerable interest and debate. One of the potential effects of fetal cocaine exposure is damage to the developing heart. This review provides an overview of the current understanding of the short- and long-term effects of fetal cocaine exposure on the heart in both humans and animal models. Human studies are still preliminary but have suggested that fetal cocaine exposure impacts on the developing heart. Studies in animal models provide strong evidence for a programming effect resulting in detrimental long-term changes to the heart induced by fetal cocaine exposure. In the rat model, fetal cocaine results in apoptosis in the term heart, left ventricular remodeling and myocyte hypertrophy, as well as increased sensitivity to ischemia/reperfusion injury in the adult male offspring. The rat model has also shown evidence of epigenetic modifications in response to intrauterine cocaine. Increased DNA methylation of promoter regions leads to a long-term decrease in the expression of the cardioprotective gene, PKCε. The current data shows fetal cocaine exposure has significant immediate and long-term cardiac consequences in animal models and while human studies are still incomplete they suggest this phenomenon may also be significant in humans exposed to cocaine during development.

Effect of cocaine and crack on the ploidy status of Tetrahymena pyriformis: a study using DNA image analysis

“…Moreover, the effect of cocaine has been linked with alterations at gene level, RNA level and protein level (Freeman et al 2002). Furthermore, in other studies, cocaine has been shown to induce chromosome segregation alterations, changes in the spindle apparatus and premature centromere separation in mouse oocytes (Combelles et al 2000) as well as damage in meiotic and mitotic spindle microtubules in embryonic mammalian cultured mouse oocytes (Combelles et al 2000) and cardiac cells (Meyer and Zhang 2009), respectively. These alterations have been correlated with genomic instability that may result in aneuploidy and carcinogenesis (Brinkley et al 1985;.…”

Congenital Heart Diseases in Children: Incidence, Risk Factors, Mortality

“…Наркотики По данным K. D. Meyer (2010), воздействие кокаина на плод не вызывает формирования грубых пороков раз-вития, но повышает риск сердечно-сосудистых катастроф в зрелом возрасте у потомства в несколько раз [52]. Результаты более ранних исследований демонстрируют, что употребление матерью кокаина во время беремен-ности увеличивает вероятность развития ВПС у плода в 11 раз [53], гетеротаксии -в 4 раза [54], мембраноз-ных ДМЖП -в 2,5 раза [50].…”

Revisión narrativa. Complicaciones en la madre, feto y neonato, derivadas del consumo de cocaína durante la gestación

“…En el sistema respiratorio se reportan alteraciones propias del síndrome de abstinencia neonatal u otras relacionadas como la insuficiencia respiratoria y el síndrome de muerte súbita del lactante 40 . En la citada revisión se hace mención de efectos cardiotóxicos como las arritmias en el recién nacido, disminución del gasto cardiaco y elevación del segmento ST, lo que se traduce en isquemia miocárdica transitoria del neonato 40 ; también pueden darse malformaciones estructurales cardiacas y vasculares como lo son estenosis pulmonar, defectos del septum ventricular y ductus arterioso persistente 40,41 .…”