Ectopia cordis: report of two cases

Ectopia Cordis is a dramatic but rare cardiac anomaly with poor prognosis in most centers worldwide. This rare malformation occurs in 5.5-7.9 per million live births in the USA(1). This cardiac malformation is defined as a heart that is in an extra- thoracic position. In this article, we report two newborn infants admitted to our newborn unit with the heart beating outside the thoracic cavity. One child succumbed due to prematurity and severe cardiac malformations, while the other child successfully underwent surgical reconstruction of the ectopia cordis. She succumbed due to overwhelming sepsis one week after the surgery. Such cases have neither been reported nor treated locally. East African Medical Journal Vol.81(9) 2004: 486-48