3.5 Cardiac surgery
Seventy-seven percent of children with DS included in the analysis had a
history of congenital cardiac disease and forty-five percent of the
cohort (n=20) had previous cardiac surgery. NIV data were compared
between those with a past history of cardiac surgery prior to NIV
initiation and those without (Figure 4).
Those with a history of cardiac surgery showed significantly less NIV
use, across all parameters. In terms of percentage of days used, those
with prior cardiac surgery showed 71.18 ± 3.73% days used compared to
85.04 ± 2.68% in their non-surgical counterparts (p<0.001).
As well as increased days used, the non-surgical cohort showed greater
use per night, with a significantly greater percentage of days used
>4hrs (62.07 ± 3.72% versus 49.83 ± 4.56, p=0.037) and
increased average use per night (5.59 ± 0.34hrs versus 4.47 ± 0.40hrs,
p=0.036).
Significantly greater AHI was observed in the cardiothoracic surgical
cohort relative to their counterparts, 6.86 ± 0.93 and 4.75 ± 0.42
(p=0.031), respectively. However, despite poorer use the surgical cohort
showed significantly greater system efficacy in the form of reduced
system leak (p=0.046) and percentage of time at excess leak (p=0.004)
relative to their non-surgical comparators.