The Natural History of Ventricular Septal Defects: A Long-Term Prospective Two-Dimensional Echocardiography Study

Previous studies into the natural history of ventricular septal defects (VSD) have been limited by the lack of a noninvasive technique that could accurately classify [1] defects and identify defect closure mechanisms. Two-dimensional echocardiographic (2-D echo) (combined with Doppler) potentially fulfills these criteria [2]. Between June 1981 and August 1984, 354 consecutive infants have presented to our two centers with clinical evidence of a VSD (incidence = 1.7 cases/1,000 live births). It is assumed that all significant VSD patients born in either region during this time period were included in the study, but that a significant proportion of small defects may not have been referred.