title: Paternal age and offspring congenital heart defects: a national cohort study.
abstract: Paternal age has been associated with offspring congenital heart defects (CHDs), which might be caused by increased mutations in the germ cell line because of cumulated cell replications. Empirical evidences, however, remain inconclusive. Furthermore, it is unknown whether all subtypes of CHDs are affected by paternal age. We aimed to explore the relationship between paternal age and the risk of offspring CHDs and its five common subtypes using national register data in Denmark. A total of 1,893,899 singletons born in Denmark from 1977 to 2008 were included in this national-based cohort study. Cox's proportion hazards model with robust sandwich estimate option was used to estimate the hazards ratio (95% confidence interval) for the associations between paternal age and all CHDs, as well as subtypes of CHDs (patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), ventricular septal defect (VSD), atrial septal defect (ASD), tetralogy of fallot (TOF) and coarctation of the aorta (CoA)). We did not observe an overall association between paternal age and offspring CHDs. However, compared to the paternal age of 25-29 years, paternal age of older than 45 years was associated with a 69% increased risk of PDA (HR45+ = 1.69, 95%CI:1.17-2.43). We observed similar results when subanalyses were restricted to children born to mothers of 27-30 years old. After taking into consideration of maternal age, our data suggested that advanced paternal age was associated with an increased prevalence of one subtype of offspring congenital heart defects (CHDs), namely patent ductus arteriosus (PDA).
authors: Clinical and Translational Research Center, Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Section for Epidemiology, Department of Public health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors: Xiu Juan
authors: XJ
authors: Su
authors: NPFPC Laboratory of Contraception and Devices, Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research, Shanghai, China; Institute of Reproduction and Development, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Yuan
authors: Children's Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors: Guo Ying
authors: GY
authors: Huang
authors: Section for Epidemiology, Department of Public health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors: Jørn
authors: J
authors: Olsen
authors: Section for Epidemiology, Department of Public health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors: Jiong
authors: J
authors: Li
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003718:Denmark; D005260:Female; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008423:Maternal Age; D008875:Middle Aged; D010331:Paternal Age; D015995:Prevalence; D012042:Registries; D012306:Risk; D055815:Young Adult