Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) and premature birth are associated with higher risk of cardiovascular diseases throughout adulthood. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of these factors in ventricular electrical remodeling in preadolescents. Electrocardiography was performed in a cohort of 33-IUGR, 32-preterm with appropriate weight and 60 controls. Depolarization and repolarization processes were studied by means of the surface ECG, including loops and angles corresponding to QRS and T-waves. The angles between the dominant vector of QRS and the frontal plane XY were different among the study groups: controls [20.03°(10.11°-28.64°)], preterm [25.48°(19.79°-33.56°)], and IUGR [27.77°(16.59°-33.23°)]. When compared to controls, IUGR subjects also presented wider angles between the difference of QRS and T-wave dominant vectors and the XY-plane [5.28° ± 12.15° vs 0.49° ± 14.15°, p < 0.05] while preterm ones showed smaller frontal QRS-T angle [4.68°(2.20°-12.89°) vs 6.57°(2.72°-11.31°), p < 0.05]. Thus, electrical remodeling is present in IUGR and preterm preadolescents, and might predispose them to cardiovascular diseases in adulthood. Follow-up studies are warranted.

N. Ortigosa acknowledges the support from Generalitat Valenciana under grants PrometeoII/2013/013, ACOMP/2015/186, and MINECO under grant MTM2013-43540-P. This project has also been partially funded by TEC2013-42140-R and TIN2014-53567-R from CICYT, by Grupo Consolidado BSICoS from DGA (Aragón) and European Social Fund, the Erasmus + Program of the European Union (Framework Agreement number: 2013-0040), the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority, the Bergesen foundation and grants from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (grant numbers PI12/00801 and PI14/00226), Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (grant number SAF2012-37196), cofinanced by the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional de la Unión Europea “Una manera de hacer Europa”, Fundación Mutua Madrileña, Obra Social La Caixa (Spain), Cerebra Foundation for the Brain Injured Child (Carmarthen, Wales, UK), and the European Commission (VP2HF no.611823). This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. The computation was performed by the ICTS 0707NANBIOSIS, by the High Performance Computing Unit of the CIBER in Bioengineering, Biomaterials & Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN) at the University of Zaragoza.