CONGESTIVE CARDIAC FAILURE IN CHILDREN WITH VENTRICULAR SEPTAL DEFECT

Abstract Objective: To find the frequency of clinical presentation of congestive cardiac failure in children with ventricular septal defect.  Material and method: This Cross sectional Descriptive study was conducted at department of pediatrics, Khyber teaching hospital, Peshawar from June 2018 till December 2019.   Results: A total of 209 patients with ventricular septal defect were included in this study. There were 146 (69.9%) male and 63 (30.1%) female. Minimum age of the patient was 0.9 years and maximum age was 8.5 years. The most common type of VSD was peri-membranous which was found in 86.6% of patients, followed by muscular VSD in 10% and sub-atrial infundibular VSD in 3.3% of patients. Feeding difficulty was found in 90% of patients, dyspnea in 59.8% of patients, repeated chest infection was seen in 49.8%, failure to thrive in 69.9%, tachycardia in 83.3%, displaced apex beat in 59.8%, cardiomegaly in 90%, hepatomegaly in 43.1%, VSD murmur in all 100% of patients and edema was observed in 56.5% and tachypnea in 40.7% of patients with majority of patients presenting with combination of more than three clinical features. Conclusion: Ventricular septal defect is not uncommon in our population. Peri-membranous type is the most common type found in our study. This study proves that the clinical picture of VSD has a big variety and care must be taken while these clinical features are observed in younger age groups or its combination to get the correct diagnosis in time. Key Words: Ventricular septal defect (VSD), Congestive Cardiac Failure (CCF)