title: Congenital heart disease among school children in Shimla hills.
abstract: A stratified random sample of 15,080 school going children out of 40,950 children in the age group of 5 to 16 years were screened for the prevalence of congenital heart disease and rheumatic fever/rheumatic heart disease. Thirty children were found to be suffering from definite congenital heart disease giving a prevalence of 2.25 per thousand. Atrial septal defect was the commonest lesion (38.2%) with a prevalence of 0.87 per thousand followed by ventricular septal defect (32.2%) with a prevalence of 0.73 per thousand. The prevalence of congenital heart disease was found to be significantly more in female (3.3 per thousand) than in male children (1.4 per thousand) (p < 0.05). Three (8.8%) cases had a family history of congenital heart disease. Rheumatic fever/rheumatic heart disease was found to have a significant prevalence among cases with congenital heart disease (8.8%) as compared to children without congenital heart disease (0.3%) (p < 0.001). The findings suggest the need for screening of family members of those suffering from congenital heart disease and that special attention be paid to the occurrence of rheumatic fever/rheumatic heart disease in cases of congenital heart disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Cardiology and Paediatrics, Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla.
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Thakur
authors.forename: P C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Negi
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Ahluwalia
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bhardwaj
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012214:Rheumatic Heart Disease / Q000453:epidemiology