Spectrum of paediatric cardiac diseases: a study of 15,066 children undergoing cardiac intervention at a tertiary care centre in India with special emphasis on gender.

Objectives: To analyse the relative frequency and gender ratios in the procedures (both surgical and catheter-based interventions) performed for cardiac diseases in Indian children.

Background: Not many studies are available in the developing countries with regard to the prevalence, relative frequency, or gender distribution of cardiac diseases in children. As universal newborn screening is not carried out for congenital cardiac diseases, the statistics are difficult to ascertain. Do female and male children with cardiac disease get equal parental preference in terms of surgical correction and catheter interventions in India? This question is also unanswered.

Methods: Analysis of 15,066 consecutive Indian children aged <18 years who were operated upon or had catheter intervention at a single tertiary care centre. Relative frequency and male/female ratios of cardiac lesions in these children were determined and compared with the studies in literature.

Results: Overall male/female ratio in the study was 1.4:1. Ventricular septal defect was the most common lesion (24.2%) with male/female ratio of 1.5:1, followed by tetralogy of Fallot (18.7%, 1.6:1), atrial septal defect (14.4%, 0.9:1) and so on. Male children dominated the total number of procedures performed.

Conclusion: In most of the individual cardiac lesions, the relative frequency was different from that of international studies. The gender ratio for the majority of the individual type of cardiac problems was different from that of international references. These findings may suggest a preference for the male child in the treatment of cardiac diseases in India, which could possibly be related to social causes.