Background: Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) is among most common congenital heart diseases. Doppler echocardiography could be a useful method to monitor the outcomes of ASD in children. Objectives: To evaluate the role of echocardiography in monitoring the outcomes of ASD closure in children. Subjects and methods: 31 patients (20 girls, 11 boys) with ASD ostinum secundum. The mean age of patients was 9.19+/-4.58 (2-15 years old). The patients had a mean ASD size of 20.71+/-7.81mm, mean Qp/Qs of 3.04+/-1.37. All of them underwent the ASD closure (slow physical development and/or Right Ventricular [RV] enlargement by echo cardiography). They were followed up at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months after the closure procedure. Results: All of the patients had improvement in weight. The right ventricular end-diastolic dimension and pulmonary artery diameter decreased significantly (p<0.0001) and normalised at 6 months after ASD closure. There were no trivial shunts. Conclusions: Echocardiography is a helpful noninvasive method to assess the outcomes of ASD closure in children less than 15 years old. ASD closure should be done as soon as possible in children. The procedure resulted in normalization of RV size that was associated with improvement in physical development of children.
Echocardiography ; atrial septal defect ; ECG