Prospective Study of Adult Cases Presenting at the Cardiac Unit, University College Hospital, Ibadan 1968 and 1969

Abstract

Two hundred and seventy-one consecutive patients with cardiac disease had a mean age on presentation of 37-2 years: but there were two modes, in the teens and fifties, more marked in the males whose mean age was 38-5 years. The females' mode was in the twenties and mean 35-5 years. The sex ratio was 1-46, 1. All were African s except for five Caucasoid patients. The patients were assigned to one or other of sixteen predefined diagnostic categories on the basis of clinical evidence and, where available, that from phonocardiographic and haemodynamic study, operation and necropsy. The percentage frequencies were : hypertensive heart failure 28-0 (mean age46-7 years); myocardial disease 14-0; rheumatic heart disease 13-3; endomyocardial fibrosis 8-5: mitral incompetence , undifferentiated 6-6; corpulmonale 6-6; congenital heart disease 5-5; pericardial disease 5-5; anaemic heart failure 3-0; ischaemic heart disease 2-6; aortic disease with heart involvement 1-8; infective endocarditis 1-3; aortic incompetence , undifferentiated M ; arrhythmia without signs of an organic lesion 1 1 ; annular ventricular aneurysm 0-7. The distribution resembles that in comparable series reported from Johannesburg, Cape Town, Kampala and Addis Ababa ; except that in the present series, syphilitic heart disease is absent and endomyocardial fibrosis, as in the Kampala series alone, present