Syed Najam Hyder, Tahmina Kazmi, Uzma Kazmi.
Presence of congenital heart diseases in sick neonates referred for echocardiography.
Pak Heart J Jan ;51(4):328-32.

Objective: To analyze the importance of symptoms as a reason for referral to pediatric cardiologists in the diagnosis of congenital heart diseases (CHD) in the neonates. Methodology: This is a cross sectional study on sick neonates referred for cardiac evaluation with echocardiography having clinical suspicion of congenital heart disease. The study was conducted at Cardiology Department Children Hospital, Lahore from 1st January to 31st December 2017. Data and echocardiography results were extracted from patients' documents. Results: Out of 302 sick neonates referred for echocardiography with suspicion of congenital heart diseases 25.1% were found to have congenital heart disease in this study. There were 66%males with 92.1% neonates of less than 15 days oflife. In our study 90.4% had poor perfusion and low oxygen saturation (<= 94%)was found in 85.5% cases, Tachypnea in 92.4% of babies tachycardia in 92.4%and murmur was found in 19.5%.Surprisingly in high risk groups only 3.9%babies in our study had CHD. In this study the most common acyanotic heart disease found was ventricular septal defects i.e 6.6% followed by coarctation of aorta 2.6% and atrial septal defects 2.1% along with AVSD 2%. While in cyanotic heart disease TGA was the commonest disease ie 5% followed by pulmonary atresia with intact septum and pulmonary atresia with VSD 1.3% each. Arrhythmias in sick neonates could not be added in the study because they were treated first and then referred for echocardiography. Conclusion: In sick babies in spite of high suspicion 25% found to have congenital heart disease. High risk groups had low incidence of congenital heart disease in this study. In acyanotic heart disease VSD found to be common followed by coarctation of aorta while in case of cyanotic heart disease TGA followed by pulmonary atresia intact septum and VSD found to be the commonest lesion.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com