Study finds female babies with congenital diaphragmatic hernia have slightly higher risk of death
A Johns Hopkins Children Center study using medical records from an international registry concludes that female babies with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) are slightly more likely to die within 30 to 60 days of birth than male babies with the same condition.
In a report on the published June 19 in The Journal of Pediatrics, investigators examine the role biological sex plays in outcomes for patients with CDH, and they found that females have about a 32% higher risk of dying than males. The researchers say it’s a small but significant difference, and that the origins are unclear but may be linked in part to overall lower birth weights for female newborns.
In an effort to compare disease severity and analyze differences in survival between female and male patients, Kunisaki and J. Michael Collaco, M.D., Ph.D., M.S., an associate professor of pediatrics in the Eudowood Division of Pediatric Respiratory Sciences, turned to a large international registry — the Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Study Group. Developed by the University of Texas at Houston, the registry is comprised of data on 7,288 neonatal patients with CDH -- 41% female and 58% male. All of the data was gathered from January 2007 to December 2018 from 105 hospitals in 17 countries including the United States.
The researchers found that females, who weighed less on average at birth than males, had a lower survival rate at 30 days after birth: 77.3%, compared with males who had an 80.1% 30-day survival rate. At 60 days after birth, female patients had a 70.2% survival rate, compared with 74.2% for males.
