Congenital Heart DiseaseRisk of Pneumonia in Adults With Closed Versus Unclosed Atrial Septal Defect (from a Nationwide Cohort Study)
Section snippets
Methods
This study was based on national medical registries in Denmark. The Danish health-care system is publically funded and, for the most part, free of charge. Data from all hospitals are gathered in nationwide public registries, which may be cross-linked using the unique personal identification number provided for every inhabitant since 1968.
Information on dates of birth, immigration, and death was identified in the Danish Civil Registration System.10 We used the Danish National Patient Registry
Results
The inclusion criteria were met by 1,168 patients who had been diagnosed at 1 of 80 hospitals in Denmark since 1977 (Figure 1). The majority (74%) had been diagnosed in 1 of the 4 Danish university hospitals. The median follow-up time was 9.6 years (range 1 to 33.3). Patients with ASD were grouped according to whether they underwent closure or not during follow-up (Table 1). Most patients were diagnosed after the age of 40 years (mean age at the time of diagnosis was 47.4).
Pneumonia admissions
Discussion
In this nationwide cohort study including 1,168 patients with ASD, we found that patients with ASD had a substantially increased long-term risk of hospital admission with pneumonia compared with the general population. The risk was increased for both patients with and without closure.
This increased risk of pneumonia in patients with ASD has only been sparsely described previously. We found no difference in pneumonia-related death between the patients with ASD considered collectively and the
Disclosures
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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This study was funded by Aarhus University (Aarhus, Denmark) and the Central Denmark Region (Viborg, Denmark). None of these institutions had a role in preparing or submitting this manuscript.
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