Frequency and pattern of congenital heart defects in a tertiary care cardiac hospital of Karachi

Objective: To determine the current frequency and pattern of distribution of congenital heart defects (CHD) at National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), with the age at which initial diagnosis of CHD was made and the age at which the participant first visited the study center. Methods: This is a descriptive and prospective hospital based study conducted in the pediatric cardiology unit outpatient department of NICVD. This study included all the patients, irrespective of age, having confirmed diagnosis of CHD on the basis of echocardiographic report. The collected data was entered and analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences v 20.0. Results: Out of 1100 cases of congenital heart defects 1003 could be analyzed. There are 565 males (56.3%) and 438 females (43.6%). Total 609 cases (60.6%) were of simple acyanotic lesions and 387 (38.6%) were complex cyanotic lesions. In simple lesions septal defects constitute 64.9% and obstructive lesions were 11.0%. Tetralogy of fallot(TOF) was the commonest CHD and cyanotic lesion accounted for 24.4% of the total 1003 cases followed by Ventricular septal defect(VSD) 21.5%, Atrial septal defect (ASD) 9.3% and Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) 8.6%. Pulmonary stenosis(PS) was the most common obstructive lesion making 3.1% of the CHD. In 147 (14.5%) cases combination of simple defects were encountered and the commonest combination was ASD with VSD in 34 cases. Conclusion: Congenital Heart Defects are very common in our setup and early detection of CHD is increasing. Overall burden of CHD is also increasing therefore a proper population based study on a large scale is needed to estimate the prevalence accurately.