Incidence of Congenital Heart Disease in General Population of an Asian Country, Taiwan, from 2000 to 2006

  • Prof Mei-Hwan Wu, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan
  • Hui-Chi Chen, Taiwan
  • Prof Jou-Kou Wang, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan
  • Shin-Chung Huang, Taiwan
  • San-Kuei Huang, Taiwan
  • Chun-Wei Lu, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan

    • Aims. From a national database, we investigated the epidemiological profile of congenital heart disease (CHD) which is scarce in Asians.
    Patients and Methods. Healthcare records of CHD patients born 2000-2006 were collected from Taiwan Insurance database.
    Results. The CHD incidence was 13.08/1,000 live births (male 12.05, female 14.21): Ventricular septal defect (VSD, 4.0) was the most common, followed by secundum atrial septal defect (ASDII, 3.2), patent ductus arteriosus (PDA, 2.0), pulmonary stenosis (PS, 1.2), tetralogy of Fallot (TOF, 0.63), coarctation of aorta (CoA, 0.25), transposition of great arteries (TGA, 0.21), endocardial cushion defect (ECD, 0.20), double outlet right ventricle (0.15), total anomalous pulmonary venous return (0.11), aortic stenosis (0.09), hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS, 0.062), Ebstein's anomaly (0.047) and tricuspid atresia (0.046). Female predominance was observed in VSD, ASDII, PDA and ECD whereas male predominance was observed in TGA and TOF. Ratios of western incidences to ours were high for HLHS (3.68-4.5), CoA (1.13-1.96), TGA (1.09-1.83) and tricuspid atresia (1.09-2.57), but low for PS (0.15-0.99), TOF (0.41-0.92), and possibly ASDII.
    Conclusions. In this Asian population, the incidence of CHD was at the high end of reported range, with more PS and TOF but fewer left-sided obstructions, TGA and tricuspid atresia.