Spontaneous closure of isolated ventricular septal defects in the first year of life

Objective: Ventricular septal defect [VSD] is the most common heart defect that's present at birth [congenital]. The defect involves an opening [hole] in the heart forming between the hearts lower chambers, allowing oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood to mix. The aim of this study was to correlate the size and location of isolated ventricular septal defect [VSD] with spontaneous closure rate in the first year of life

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Methods: A retrospective study of 50 patients [27 males, and 23 females] age range between 1 day to 4 months [mean age 35.9 +/- 26.4 days] with isolated ventricular septal defect [VSD] and no other cardiac lesion was performed in whom the condition was observed during the period from 1st of June 2013 to the 1[st] of June 2014 in the Pediatric Echocardiography Unit/Babylon maternity and children teaching hospital

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Results: A total of 50 infants were followed, spontaneous closure occurred in 21 [42%] cases. Fourteen [63.6%] cases of small, 7 [30.4%] cases of moderate and none of the patients with large VSDs had spontaneous closure. Spontaneous closure was noted in 15 [41.7%] of 36 cases of peri membranous defects and in 6 [60%] of 10 patients with muscular VSD

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Conclusions: About two thirds of the small [66.7%] and one third [33.3%] of moderate size ventricular septal defect [VSD] had spontaneous closure by first year of age. Muscular VSDs close spontaneously at a rate higher than peri membranous VSDs in first year of age