MONDAY, March 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Children with congenital heart disease (CHD) have increased risk of developing cancer, according to a research letter published in the March 18 issue of Circulation.

Danbee Kang, Ph.D., from Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea, and colleagues conducted a nationwide retrospective cohort study using the mother-child linked cohort from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database to examine the risk of developing cancer in newborns with CHD. Data were included for 3,550,113 first live births with singleton gestations from Jan. 1, 2005, to Dec. 31, 2019. Overall, 72,205 newborns had CHD.

The researchers found that the incidence of cancer was higher in newborns with versus without CHD during a median follow-up of 10.32 years (hazard ratio, 1.66). Compared to those without CHD, newborns with isolated valve or vessel lesions had a 2.29 times higher incidence of cancer, followed by those with complex CHD and isolated shunt lesions. Significant associations with CHD were seen for ovarian cancer, liver cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In mothers who gave birth to newborns with CHD, the hazard ratio for cancer was 1.17. The hazard ratio was consistent after inverse probability treatment weighting.

“This nationwide study demonstrates a notable association between CHD in newborns and an elevated risk of cancer in both these newborns and their mothers,” the authors write. “This insight into the multifaceted etiology of cancer in individuals with CHD calls for a multidisciplinary approach to care.”

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