Higher pulmonary artery pressure in children than adults upon fast ascent to high altitude

¹ Exercise and Health Sciences, University of Basel; and Exercise Physiology ETH-University of Zürich
² Cardiology, University Hospital Basel, Switzerland
³ Exercise Physiology ETH-University of Zürich
⁴ Pulmonary Division, University Hospital Zürich

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: susi.kriemler{at}unibas.ch.

	Abstract

The response of pulmonary artery pressure to high altitude in children has not been studied. It is also unknown if the individual response is hereditary. We therefore measured the response of pulmonary artery pressure to high altitude in prepubertal children in comparison to their biological fathers.

Echocardiography was performed at 450m and over 3 days at 3450m. Systolic pulmonary artery pressure was estimated from pressure gradient of tricuspid regurgitation.

The increase of pulmonary artery pressure in children was higher than in adults at day 1 of high altitude (15.5±9.1 vs. 7.9±6.4mmHg, p<0.001), but it returned to adult levels on day 2. The increase of pulmonary artery pressure from low to high altitude of each child correlated with the increase in his/her father (r²=0.41, p<0.003).

Prepubertal children transiently develop greater pulmonary hypertension when exposed to high altitude than their fathers. The individual response of pulmonary pressure to high altitude seems to be at least partly hereditary.