Association Between Maternal Hepatitis B Infection and Congenital Heart Defects
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Reviewed & Translated by Dat Tien Nguyen, B.A, ScM.
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Posted on June 26th, 2024
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It has been well documented that maternal infection such as rubella virus, cytomegalovirus, and coxsackievirus can increase the risk of congenital heart defects (CHD). However, there is a limited number of studies that examine the effect of Hepatitis B infection on fetal development. A study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association had reported on the association between maternal Hepatitis B and congenital heart defects in the offspring.
The retrospective cohort study was conducted in China and the medical records of approximately 7.4 million pregnancies of women between 20 and 49 years old were aggregated. Using ELISA, the study identified more than 730,000 women who had been infected with hepatitis B before and during pregnancy. New HepB infection was identified with the presence of HBsAg in around 340,000 participants, and previous infection was detected in the remaining 390,000. These cases were matched with around 3 million controls of women with similar demographic characteristics but were not infected with hepatitis B before and during the pregnancy. After adjusting for factors such as family history, early pregnancy medication, folacin usage, and paternal HBV infection status, the research concluded that previous infection with Hepatitis B increases the risk of congenital heart defect by 23%. The researchers noted that there is no increase in CHD risk in newly infected women, which could be explained by the increase in attention and treatment to these patients.
The retrospective cohort study was conducted in China and the medical records of approximately 7.4 million pregnancies of women between 20 and 49 years old were aggregated. Using ELISA, the study identified more than 730,000 women who had been infected with hepatitis B before and during pregnancy. New HepB infection was identified with the presence of HBsAg in around 340,000 participants, and previous infection was detected in the remaining 390,000. These cases were matched with around 3 million controls of women with similar demographic characteristics but were not infected with hepatitis B before and during the pregnancy. After adjusting for factors such as family history, early pregnancy medication, folacin usage, and paternal HBV infection status, the research concluded that previous infection with Hepatitis B increases the risk of congenital heart defect by 23%. The researchers noted that there is no increase in CHD risk in newly infected women, which could be explained by the increase in attention and treatment to these patients.