Neurogenic hypertension characterizes children with congenital central hypoventilation syndrome and is aggravated by alveolar hypoventilation during sleep.

OBJECTIVES

Autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction characterizes congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS). The objectives were to describe ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) of children with CCHS, to assess cardiac ANS dysfunction as compared with control participants and to search for relationships between ANS dysfunction and blood pressure (BP) or night-time PCO 2 measurements.

METHODS

Retrospective study of ABPM of children with CCHS and case (CCHS)-control (healthy children) study of heart rate variability (HRV) indices obtained during polysomnography (wakefulness, nonrapid eye movement sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, and whole night). The HRV indices analyzed were low, high-frequency powers, low frequency/high frequency, and for the whole night, SD1/SD2.

RESULTS

Twenty-four children with CCHS (14 girls) who underwent 81 ABPM (2-6/patient, 74 after 4 years) were included in the longitudinal study. Hypertension was evidenced in 29 of 45 (64%) ABPM made between 5 and 9 years of age as compared with 12 of 36 (33%) ABPM made between 10 and 17 years of age ( P  = 0.005). In the case-control study (12 pairs), as compared with control children, children with CCHS were characterized by a decreased HRV while awake, which was aggravated at night. In children with CCHS, at daytime, SBP percentiles positively correlated with low-frequency power ( R  = -0.82; P  = 0.001), while at night-time, SBP percentiles negatively correlated with SD1/SD2 ( R  = -0.79; P  = 0.010). The SD1/SD2 ratio also negatively correlated with median PCO 2 under mechanical ventilation ( R  = -0.69; P  = 0.013).

CONCLUSION

Neurogenic hypertension is frequent in CCHS and correlates with ANS dysfunction, which also correlates with alveolar ventilation during mechanical ventilation.