Occurrence of Lutembacher syndrome in a rural regional hospital: case report from Buea, Cameroon

Most cardiovascular conditions are either acquired or congenital in origin, but in rare instances, a combination of both is found. Lutembacher syndrome (LS) refers to the uncommon combination of acquired mitral stenosis (MS) and congenital atrial septal defect (ASD) (secundum type). Other forms described in the literature include iatrogenic LS and reverse LS (1). LS is a very rare entity with incidence reported to be 0.001 per million populations with a female predominance (2,3). Symptoms present at any age. The prognosis is good before the onset of pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure. Surgical and percutaneous trans-catheter therapies with balloon valvuloplasty and septal closure using an Amplatzer closure device have proven to be beneficial (4). We report the case of a young adult male who presented with this rare clinical syndrome, apparently the first reported in the Central African literature