Congenital Heart Disease in Children Visiting JPMC

Abstract

Introduction:

Interest in congenital heart disease has increased in recent year due to advent of better methods of diagnoses (such as cardiac cathetcrisation and angiocardiograms), and the spectacular advances in surgical treatment for correction of cardiac defects.

Material and Methods:

190 cases of congenital heart disease were studied in Unit—I of the Children’s Hospital, J innah Postgraduate Medical Centre, from July 1968 to June, 1974, a six year period. This is purely a clinical study and no autopsies were performed. In the younger age group (Under one year) cyanosis may occur in other conditions such as pulmonary disorders and intracranial lesions; therefore only those cases with obvious clinical signs of heart disease were included in this study.

Results:

During the period of this study the total admission in the ward were 7480, and cases of congenital heart disease were 190, i.e. of the 2.5% admissions (Table I); of these approximat ely 69% were acyanotic and potentially cyanotic, and 31% were of the cyanotic group. There was a preponderance of males over famales-109 males (57.3%) to 81 females (42.7%).  The cases that left against medical advice (10%) were mostly in a serious condition and this has probably lessened the mortality in this study.

Discussion:

Exact diagnoses were not possible in all cases due to lack of facilities for detailed and subhisticated investigations. Taussing,s(7) descriptions with X-ray and Electrocardiograms were followed in the clinical assessments of the cases. No autopsies were performed.  While such a study cannot accurately define incidence or prevalence as in a true population sampling but will still reflect the true picture to some extent and provide a working picture in the absence of definitive works.

Acknowledgement:

We are grateful to Prof..Shauket Syed and his staff at the NICVD who have done all the electrocardiograms and helped us in the diagrams of complicated cases.