Prevalence of Atrial Septal Aneurysm in Bangladeshi Subjects: Analysis of 2598 Subjects by Echocardiography

Abstract

Background: An atrial septal aneurysm (ASA) is a redundancy or saccular deformity of the atrial septum. This itself is usually of no clinical significance and is often diagnosed incidentally. However, it may be associated with significant cardiac and non-cardiac diagnoses, the most important of which are intracardiac shunts, arrhythmias, embolic stroke, and migraine. ASA may be present in 1 to 3% of general population. However, the prevalence of ASA in Bangladeshi subjects is not known.

Methods: The study was carried out in a private consultation centre of Dhaka City during February 2018 to July 2019. All the patients who are referred for TTE were included in the study, the study has been carried out to find out the prevalence of this often-overlooked anatomical structure by trans-thoracic echocardiography

Results: Out of 2598 echo studies, ASA was found in 111 subjects giving a prevalence of 4.27%. Majority of the patients with ASA belonged to 40-79-year age group; 42.3% were 40-59 years of age while 32.4% were of 60-79 years More than half (59.5%) had otherwise normal heart, 20.7% had ischaemic heart disease, 13.5% had left ventricular hypertrophy, 5.4% congenital heart disease, while 4.5% had chronic rheumatic heart disease.

Conclusion: The ASA is often an incidental diagnosis, though it may not be so rare. Once diagnosed, other associations should be sought for.

Cardiovasc. j. 2020; 13(1): 7-11