Outcomes and Trends of Surgical Ventricular Septal Defect Repair in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Pakistan: a Retrospective Study

Abstract

Background: Ventricular septal defect is the most common congenital heart malformation in newborns. About 77% of newborns diagnosed with congenital heart disease had ventricular septal defect in Pakistan. VSD closure is one of the commonest procedure performed by pediatric cardiac surgeons. With advancement in preoperative and postoperative management, VSD closure has a very low incidence of postoperative complications.

Methodology: Patients who underwent VSD closure at our center from 2017 to 2021 were reviewed in the database. Patients with a simple VSD were included and those with a concomitant complex congenital cardiac anomaly were excluded. Data was analyzed in SPSS 23.

Results: Among the patients, 62.8% were males and 37.2% were females. Mean age was 10.36 + 9.69 years, with 39.7% of the subjects below the age of 5. Increased ICU stay was defined as stay in the ICU for more than 48 hours and increased hospital stay was described as postoperative stay of more than 7 days. Nine patients had a prolonged hospital stay and four patients had a prolonged ICU stay. One patient went under reopening due to bleeding tamponade and one had a deep sternum infection. In hospital mortality rate was 2.4%.

Conclusion: VSD has a very low mortality rate in our center. Further studies are required to identify risk factors for morbidity and mortality. Long term follow-up studies should be conducted to identify rate of long term complications.