ANALYSIS OF PREVALENCE OF CONGENITAL HEART DEFECTS IN LOCAL POPULATION OF PAKISTAN

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most common congenital malformation found in newborns, affecting approximately 6–8 per 1000 live births and are the most frequent cause of infant deaths from birth defects. The basic aim of the study was detecting congenital heart disease in the infants of the population of Pakistan. This cross sectional study was conducted in Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi during January 2018 to August 2018. The data were collected from 500 patients. All infants visiting to the OPD due to any complaint would be examined for this study. Any abnormal heart sound case was referred for echocardiography for confirmation. The data were collected from 200 patients. Among the confirmed cases, 62.5 percent were males. 78 percent of the cases were between ages 1 to 3 months. The patients came with different presenting complaints as listed below. The presenting complaint was mostly respiratory infection 48 %, underweight 31 %, cyanosis (4%). It was found that the majority (98%) of cases were that of acyanotic congenital heart disease. Ventricular septal defect was the most common congenital heart disease detected. PDA (11.6%) was the second highest in frequency, followed by ASD (7.9%), TOF (0.9%) and aortic stenosis (0.6%). It is concluded that early diagnosis and effective management has drastic improvement on prognosis of congenital heart disease. There is a considerably higher incidence of congenital heart disease in population of Abbottabad district. Unfortunately, the defect is unidentified during the infancy or until complications develop