Relative incidence and mortality of congenital heart defects diagnosed by angiohemodynamic methods: a 17-year study.

Over a 17-year period (January 1971 to January 1988), 2322 children, aged 0-14 years, were diagnosed as having congenital heart disease (CHD) by cardiac catheterization and angiography. Excluding those with highly complex or undiagnosed defects, there were 2156 children with CHD, 72.4% of whom were treated surgically, with a total surgical mortality rate of 24.1%. After a mean follow-up of 9 years the overall mortality of the cohort was 29.9%, 29.1% occurring in the first month of life, 39.6% between 1 month and 1 year, and 31.2% between 1 and 14 years. The incidence, mortality, and age at death of each cardiac defect are presented and compared with the results of other studies. The overall mortality for congenital heart defects in eastern Spain remains elevated, whereas there has been a significant decrease in neonatal mortality and a trend towards a lower mortality in the last years of the study.