Newborn heart defects linked to brain

San Francisco, Calif. -- Avoiding some of the mental and physical impairments linked to congenital heart disease may require surgery in utero, U.S. and Canadian researchers suggest.

A study compared the brains of 41 term infants with congenital heart disease to those of 16 normal newborns, using advanced magnetic resonance imaging in incubators newly developed at the University of California, San Francisco.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found the brains of babies with congenital heart disease appear similar to those of premature newborns, with tiny areas of cell injury unusual in full-term infants.

"Congenital heart disease already had affected brain development before birth," study co-author Dr. Patrick McQuillen, of the UCSF Children's Hospital, said in a statement. "At a metabolic and a micro structural level, these infants' brains look at least one month less developed at term, even before they have heart surgery."

© 2007 United Press International.