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Comment & Response
December 2, 2020

Exploring the Cardiac Phenotypes of Prematurity

Author Affiliations
  • 1Oxford Cardiovascular Clinical Research Facility, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
  • 2Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts
JAMA Cardiol. 2021;6(3):361. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2020.6056

To the Editor Larger proportions of preterm infants are surviving beyond the neonatal period, with epidemiological and observational evidence showing an increase in long-term cardiovascular risk. Using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging, Goss et al1 found that adolescents and young adults born preterm have smaller biventricular chamber sizes, lower myocardial mass, and hypercontractile function compared with term-born individuals. The potential implications of these findings are important, but there are several relevant distinctions with current evidence that highlight the unique developmental programming of the preterm heart.

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