Underlying congenital heart disease in Nigerian children with pneumonia

Background: Pneumonia is a common cause of childhood morbidity and mortality globally. Some congenital heart disease (CHD) may predispose their sufferer to bronchopneumonia. Objective: To evaluate the contribution of CHD to pneumonia in children seen in a tertiary hospital. Methods: Over a year, consecutive children diagnosed radiologically with pneumonia were evaluated echocardiographically for CHD. Certain characteristics in children with pneumonia and CHD were compared to those without CHD. Results: There were 121 children with pneumonia of which 61(50.40%) were males and their mean age was 10.2 ± 10.93 months. The prevalence of CHD was 14(11.57%), the commonest CHD was ventricular septal defect (VSD) in 7(50.00%). Most of the CHD with septal defect had moderate to large defects. Children with CHD were 3 and 256 times more likely to have heart failure and murmur respectively compared to those without CHD, p = 0.084 and