Anand Prabhavathy Raghavan1, Gejoe George2
BACKGROUND
Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (hereby referred to as CDH) is a relatively rare anomaly with a prevalence of 1 in 3000 livebirths. Time of onset of symptoms has much significance as far as the prognosis of CDH is concerned. CNS anomalies co-exist in up to 10% of non-syndromic CDH cases; hence, the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of CHD is of interest to paediatric neurosurgeons also.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Retrospective study-descriptive, based on case records. Study subjects were all in patients admitted with CDH during the study period in Paediatric Surgery Department, SAT Hospital, Trivandrum. No definite sampling method has been adopted for the study. Consecutive cases of CDH have been recruited. Statistical analysis is done by Chi-square test, proportion and percentage analysis. Data were analysed using computer software, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 10.
RESULTS
The study variable (outcome) is the number of successful surgeries undertaken by Paediatric Surgery Department, SAT Hospital, Trivandrum, for CDH in specified age group and based on specific characteristic of hernia, which is expressed in percentage. The term prognosis represents outcome variable in the study.
CONCLUSION
The prevalence of CDH in our institute is around 1 in 2288, which is slightly higher than the prevalence worldwide. CDH is more commonly seen in male population. Younger the age of onset of symptoms (<24hrs.), worse the prognosis (p<0.05).None of the cases had coexisting CNS anomalies, which may not be statistically significant. It may be due to the greater number of stillbirths in foetuses associated with CNS anomalies (which were not included), in our study group, during the given study period.
