Animasahun BA
Background: Congenital heart disease has a great impact on a child’s morbidity and mortality as well as on the health systems cost. They represent the main cause of death among children with congenital malformations.
Method: The study was prospective, cross-sectional involving consecutive subjects from two centers which were; a tertiary hospital, a private hospital and a major cardiology center. Children with congenital malformations had transthoracic echocardiography done by a cardiologist. Data was analyzed using Microsoft excel software supplemented with Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Means of continuous variables were compared using the Student t test and proportions using Chi-square test. Level of significance set at p<0.05.
Results: A total of 366 children with obvious congenital malformation were recruited in the study. The age range of the patients was between 1 day to 12 years with a mean age of about 6 + 508.03. Majority of the patients were neonates as shown in Table 1. Male to female ratio was 1.1:1. Up to 26.5% of the subjects had a structurally normal heart. The most common congenital heart defect observed observed was atrial septal defect (14.8%) followed by isolated ventricular septal defect (14.1%). Atrioventricular septal defect 13.7%, Patent ductus arteriosus 7.1%, tetralogy of Fallot 4.5%. Some of the patients had more than one cardiac defects.
Conclusion: The prevalence of congenital heart defects among children with congenital malformation is very high. Routine screening for cardiac defects in any patients with congenital malformation is advocated to improve quality of life, reduce morbidity and mortality in these subjects.
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