Echocardiography at the University of Ilorin teaching hospital Nigeria: A three years audit

Echocardiography is a major non-invasive cardiac examination that provides morphologic and hemodynamic information which often guide the management and monitoring of patients with cardiovascular diseaes. We present an audit of echocardiographic services over a three year period to define the pattern of cardiac diseases in the center. Echocardiograms of 913 patients who were referred between May 2004 and April 2007 were reviewed. Studies were performed with Esaote Megas CVX machine which has 2-D, M-mode and Doppler facilities. The data obtained were analyzed for mean age, sex, clinical indications and echocardiocardiographic diagnoses in the study subjects. Nine hundred and thirteen patients were examined, comprising of 523 males (57.3%) and 390 females (42.7%). The commonest indication for echocardiography was systemic hypertension (61.4%) followed by congenital heart disease (7.23%), chest pain (5.9%), congestive cardiac failure (5.2%), rheumatic valvular heart disease (3.1%) and stroke (3.06%) respectively. Five hundred and thirty-seven (58.8%) subjects had echocardiographic diagnoses of hypertensive heart disease, 67 (7.3%) had congenital heart diseases, 64 (7.0%) had rheumatic valvular heart diseases., 63 (6.9%) had various forms of cardiomyopathies and Pericardial diseases accounted for 19 (2.1%). Ischemic heart disease was diagnosed in 9 (0.99%) patients and 105 (11.5%) subjects had normal study. Hypertensive heart disease and related complications were found to be the commonest cardiovascular disease in the center followed by congenital and rheumatic heart disease respectively. There were few cases of coronary artery disease. © Medwell Journals, 2009.