Breathlessness in Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD): It's more than just the heart

<bold>Introduction:</bold> Adults with congenital heart disease (ACHD) commonly report shortness of breath (SOB) disproportionate to the severity of cardiac disease. Dysfunctional breathing (DB) has an overall prevalence of ~9% in the general population and 30% in asthmatics, however little is known of its prevalence in ACHD. <bold>Aims:</bold> Establish the number of ACHD patients with a diagnosis of DB. <bold>Methods:</bold> CPET data from 107 ACHD patients were reviewed. Diagnosis of DB was based upon expert clinical opinion. Pearson chi-square explored associations between DB and sex, medication, SOB, and previous open surgical repair (OSR). <bold>Results:</bold> 29% (31/107) of patients were diagnosed with DB. Analysis showed no statistically significant association between DB and sex (χ(1) = 0.015, <italic>p</italic> =. 090), medications (χ(1) = 7.573, <italic>p</italic> = 0.056), SOB (χ(1) = 0.148, <italic>p</italic> = 0.700), and OSR (χ(1) = 0.647, <italic>p</italic> = 0.421). Patient demographics are shown in Table 1. <table-wrap><object-id>erj;64/suppl_68/PA1454/TB1</object-id><object-id>T1</object-id><object-id>TB1</object-id><table><colgroup><col></col><col></col></colgroup><tbody><tr><td>Demographics</td><td>N=107</td></tr><tr><td>Sex (m)</td><td>83</td></tr><tr><td>Age (years)</td><td>31 (23-45)</td></tr><tr><td>BMI (kg/m²)</td><td>26 (23-31)</td></tr><tr><td>Smoking (years)</td><td>0 (0-4)</td></tr><tr><td> Beta-Blockers (%) </td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>SOB (%)</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>HRmax (bpm)</td><td>157 (142-169)</td></tr><tr><td>VEmax BTPS (L/min)</td><td>60 (47-74)</td></tr><tr><td>WRmax (watts)</td><td>117 (95-155)</td></tr></tbody></table></table-wrap> ^{<bold>Table 1. Demographic data expressed as medians with 25-75% quartiles and as percentages</bold>} <bold>Conclusions:</bold> DB in ACHD has a comparable prevalence to asthma. We believe our data is of clinical importance, where DB should be considered as a cause of SOB in ACHD.