Ashley Shutz
10/7/2010
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Bibliography 1. www.righthealth.com/topic/Septal_Defect 2. www.medterms.com/script 3. www.bing.com/health/article/mayo 4. www.AHA.com/ventricularseptaldefect 5. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventricular_septal_defect 6. www.childrenshospital.org
Ventricular Septal Defect or VSD is commonly called the “hole in the heart.” It is a defect in the septum between the two ventricles of the left and right. It is more common in newborn babies. It is less obvious in older children and adults, because it usually closes on its own without any surgery or help. VSD is the most common type of heart defect; it can also be accompanied by other heart …show more content…
No matter what size your VSD is a patient should always take antibiotics for any dental or other procedures that are to be performed on that patient. This is also a way to prevent endocarditis. Most of these signs or symptoms don’t always occur at birth, most but not all are seen until adulthood when heart failure is suspected. If you are lucky though, at your first baby checkup the doctor will be able to hear through his/her stethoscope a heart murmur, which is the sound of blood rushing from one hole to the other. The sound and size of the murmur depends on the amount of blood rushing through. Tests for VSD include; Chest x-ray, ECG, Echocardiogram, Cardiac catherization, and MRI of the heart. These will all determine the definite diagnosis, along with the size of the heart, how much blood is going to the lungs, and show the enlarged left ventricle. A VSD can be detected by cardiac auscultation. A VSD can be silent if there is not much pressure difference between the ventricles and will not be very …show more content…
They are found in 30-60% of all newborns with a congenital heart defect, or about 2-6 per 1000 births. During heart formation, when the heart begins life as a hollow tube, it begins to partition, forming a septa. If this does not occur properly it can lead to an opening being left within the ventricular septum. It is debatable whether all those defects are true heart defects, or if some of them are normal phenomena, since most of the trabecular VSDs close spontaneously. Prospective studies give a prevalence of 2-5 per 100 births of trabecular VSDs that closes shortly after birth in 80-90% of the cases. Congenital VSDs are frequently associated with other congenital conditions, such as Down syndrome. A VSD can also form a few days after a myocardial infarction (heart attack) due to mechanical tearing of the septal wall, before scar tissue forms, when macrophages start remodeling the dead heart tissue.(wikipedia, Nov