title: Risk factors for postural tachycardia syndrome in children and adolescents.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is prevalent in children and adolescents and has a great impact on health. But its risk factors have not been fully understood. This study aimed to explore possible risk factors for children and adolescents with POTS.
  
  
  RESULTS
  600 children and adolescents (test group) aged 7-18 (11.9 ± 3.0) years old, 259 males and 341 females, were recruited for identifying its risk factors. Another 197 subjects aged from 7 to 18 (11.3 ± 2.3) years old were enrolled in the validation group. Heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP) were monitored during upright test. Risk factors were analyzed and sensitivity and specificity for predicting POTS were tested via receiver operating characteristic curve. Among 600 subjects, 41 were confirmed with POTS patients (6.8%) based on clinical manifestation and upright test. The results showed a significant difference in daily water intake, the daily sleeping hours, supine HR, HR increment and maximum HR during upright test between POTS and the unaffected children (P<0.05). Likelihood of POTS would increase by 1.583 times if supine HR was increased by 10 beats/min (95%CI 1.184 to 2.116, P<0.01), by 3.877 times if a child's water intake was less than 800 ml/day (95%CI 1.937 to 7.760, P<0.001), or by 5.905 times (95%CI 2.972 to 11.733, P<0.001) if sleeping hours were less than 8 hours/day. Supine HR, daily water intake and sleeping hours showed the capability of predicting POTS in children and adolescents with an AUC of 83.9% (95% CI: 78.6%-89.1%), sensitivity of 80.5% and specificity of 75%. Furthermore, in validation group, predictive sensitivity and specificity were 73.3% and 72.5%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Faster supine HR, less water intake and shorter sleeping hours were identified as risk factors for POTS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Zhenhui
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Statistics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xueying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, United States of America.
authors.forename: Todd
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ochs
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jinyan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Zhenyu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Kaifeng, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gai
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Peking University Health Sciences Centre, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Chaoshu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China; Key Laboratory of Molecular Cardiology, Ministry of Education, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Junbao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hongfang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D019540:Area Under Curve; D001794:Blood Pressure; D002648:Child; D004326:Drinking; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D054972:Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015995:Prevalence; D012372:ROC Curve; D012307:Risk Factors; D012890:Sleep; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires