The influence of consanguineous marriage upon the frequency of congenital heart defects

Three hundred seventy patients with congenital heart defects (CHD) who were admitted to Pediatric Cardiyology Unit of Selçuk University, Meram Medical School Hospital, between September 1999 and September2001, were evaluated. Ventricular septal defect was the most common type of CHD and it was follovved by atrial septal defect as in literatüre. Consanguinity marriage was detected as 30.0 % among the parents of the patients with CHD. This ratio was significantly higher than the ratio detected from the healthy control group. As we Investigated the degree of relativity among the parents of the patients with CHD, we found that the first cousin marriage was higher than the far consanguinity marriage. These findings indicated that first cousin marriage could increase the occurence of CHD among the offsprings.