Cardiomegaly in ghana: an autopsy study.

A three (3) year prospective macroscopic autopsy study of cardiomegaly, heart size ≥400grams, was conducted at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital Mortuary between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000. Cardiomegaly constituted 12.2% of the autopsy series over the 3-year period. The causes of cardiomegaly were essential hypertension in 55% of cases and hypertension of renal origin in 23.4% of cases. Cardiomyopathies, cor pulmonale, chronic rheumatic heart diseases, ischaemic heart diseases, chronic severe anaemia (essentially Sickle cell origin), and congenital heart diseases accounted for 6.1%, 4.6%, 3.6%, 3.3%, 1.8% and 0.8% of cases respectively.