Skip to content
EntityQ838139· pop 33· linked from 207 articles

ventricular septal defect

Sign in to save

Also known as VSD, Interventricular septal defect, Ventricular septal abnormality, interventricular communication

heart septal defect characterized by an opening in the interventricular septum, causing a shunt between ventricles

Key facts

Specialty
Cardiac surgery
Frequency
0.0272% ( Europe )

via Wikipedia infobox

Research

26,333 papers

via PubMed

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Heart sounds of a ventricular septal defect in a 14-year-old girl.

A ventricular septal defect (VSD) is a hole in the ventricular septum, the wall dividing the left and right ventricles of the heart. It is a common congenital heart defect, although restrictive muscular VSDs are not true pathological defects; they are typically just a delayed closure of the ventricular septum. They have an extremely high prevalence in newborns. The extent of the opening may vary from pin size to complete absence of the ventricular septum, creating one common ventricle. The ventricular septum consists of an inferior muscular and superior membranous portion and is extensively innervated with conducting cardiomyocytes.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “ventricular septal defect” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.