PREVALENCE OF HEART DISEASE IN TORONTO CHILDREN

The prevalence of heart disease in school children in this study was found to be .37%. This agrees rather closely with the recent findings of Rauh in Cincinnati and Robinson and Aggeler in San Francisco, but is a distinct drop from the findings of investigators 20 and 30 years ago, when 1 to 2% was the prevalence commonly reported. From birth to 5 years of age heart disease in children is almost always congenital in origin. In the school age group 55% had congenital heart disease and 44% had rheumatic heart disease. Thus in the school age group, congenital heart disease occurred in just over half the heart cases, whereas if one takes the whole age group from birth to 15 years, congenital heart disease is found twice as commonly as rheumatic heart disease. Deaths from congenital heart disease are roughly six times as common as rheumatic heart disease in the birth to 15 years age group. During one year there were 29 deaths from congenital heart disease and five from rheumatic heart disease. It is of interest that by far the most common congenital defect of the heart is the ventricular septal defect. The patent ductus arteriosus is second with a third as many cases, tetralogy of Fallot is fourth, auricular septal defect is fifth, and so on. This is important to the paediatrician but it is of interest and importance to both the surgeon and the paediatrician to note the frequency according to the cause of death. Here tetralogy of Fallot is first, transposition of the great vessels second, anomalies of the aortic valve and ascending aorta third, ventricular septal defect fourth and coarctation of the aorta fifth. Thus efforts might well be directed to evolving satisfactory methods of treating transposition of the great vessels, the second most common cause of death from congenital heart anomalies.