Associasion of cerebrovascular accidents by atrial septal defects (PFO & ASD) in patients referred to Tabriz children hospital

Abstract

Cerebrovascular accidents, including atrial septal defects that occur due to cerebrovascular disorders, congenital heart diseases, infections and metabolic diseases, etc., are increasing day by day and require increasing attention. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association of cerebrovascular accidents with atrial septal defects in patients referred to Tabriz Children's Hospital. methods: The present study was a cross-sectional descriptive study that was conducted on 50 children who were diagnosed with cerebrovascular accident and were admitted to Tabriz Children's Hospital between 2013 and 2014. Sampling was done by census and the data collection tool was a checklist including demographic variables, factors related to cerebrovascular accidents, clinical symptoms, electrocardiography and echocardiography findings, which were extracted from the patients' files by referring to the hospital's medical records department. After collecting the relevant data, it was entered into SPSS24 software for analysis, and P-Value <0.05 was considered as a significant level. Findings: 58% of the examined children were boys and their average age was 7.62 (±5.64) years. Cardiovascular diseases were identified as the most common cause of cerebrovascular accident with 54%. All vascular events were ischemic and the most common clinical symptoms were related to muscle weakness disorder, balance disorder, consciousness disorder, and speech disorder with 88, 32, 30, and 25%, respectively. 2% of children had abnormal ECG findings. Echocardiography was performed for 84% of patients and the prevalence of atrial septal defect (ASD) and patent foramen ovale (PFO) were 14 and 28%, respectively. The simultaneous prevalence of ADS + PFO was also 6%. All the examined children had no family history, however, 12% had a history of heart diseases. The average systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and heart rate were 99.59, 65.78 mm Hg and 102.78 beats per minute, respectively. Finally, for 24% of the examined children, a closure device has been performed.