Heterotaxia as an outcome of maternal diabetes: an epidemiological study.

There are very few publications on the possible relationship between maternal diabetes and infants presenting heterotaxia-asymmetry defects. In mice, there is a relationship between maternal diabetes and heterotaxia, although this is influenced by the fetal genotype. An epidemiological analysis of heterotaxia-asymmetry in children born to diabetic mothers (diabetes mellitus or gestational diabetes) is presented here. The analysis is based in the case-control study of the ECEMC database. However, due to the very small sample size for each type of study of heterotaxia-asymmetry alterations, up to 10 control infants for each case were selected. Although the sample size is small, the results suggest that only maternal diabetes mellitus significantly increases the risk for transposition of great vessels (OR=61.87; CI:7.36-519.82), and transposition of viscera (OR=24.82; CI;1.84-335.44). Copyright 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.