Status of paediatric cardiac surgery in China.

Epidemiological data show that in China, approximately 100,000 neonates annually are born with congenital heart disease, an incidence equivalent to that found internationally. However, surgical treatment is available to only one-fifth of these individuals. Access to surgery is generally becoming more readily available in the urbanised coastal areas than in the rural interior. Over 1000 procedures annually are performed at the two largest facilities, the Fu Wei Hospital, Beijing, and the Shangai Children's Medical Centre. The 300 paediatric cardiac surgery facilities across China perform approximately 30,000 operations each year, with the quality of treatment varying according to location and procedure type: data on Tetralogy of Fallot correction, for example, show that standards are equivalent to those seen internationally, with a mortality rate of 1.1-5%. For other procedures, although outcomes have improved since the beginnings of Chinese paediatric cardiac surgery in the 1970s, there is still a process of quality improvement, especially for the more severe and complex disorders.