BACKGROUND: The spectrum of cardiac diseases in children is distinct from that in adults, and changes with advances in medical care and socioeconomic conditions. Such data are important for the allocation of medical resources, but are unclear. Based on a longitudinal pediatric cardiac screening program, we sought to delineate the spectrum and the trends. METHODS: From 2002 to 2018, citywide screening programs of cardiac diseases for children were performed in Taipei, Taiwan. Participants, mainly students entering the first grade of elementary school, were evaluated using questionnaires, simplified 4-lead electrocardiography (EKG), phonocardiography, and physical examinations. Those suspected of having abnormal cardiac lesions received detailed evaluations by pediatric cardiologists for a final diagnosis. RESULTS: The median prevalence of cardiac lesions in the children was 19.60/1000 (range from 14.9 to 24.65/1000), including congenital heart disease (32.02%), EKG abnormalities (33.34%), mitral valve prolapse (15.17%), Kawasaki disease (6.89%), rheumatic heart disease (0.17%) and others (12.41%). A significant time trend was only observed in a trend of decline in rheumatic heart disease. The median prevalence rates of congenital heart disease, Kawasaki disease, rheumatic heart disease, mitral valve prolapse, and EKG abnormalities were 6.20, 1.37, 0, 3.12, and 6.46 per 1000 children, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study, based on a citywide cardiac screening program, indicates that the spectrum of cardiac diseases in children has not changed in recent decades, except for a decline or disappearance of rheumatic heart disease in the Taipei metropolitan area. While congenital heart disease and EKG abnormalities were the most common, Kawasaki disease was the most commonly acquired heart disease in children.
BACKGROUND: The spectrum of cardiac diseases in children is distinct from that in adults, and changes with advances in medical care and socioeconomic conditions. Such data are important for the allocation of medical resources, but are unclear. Based on a longitudinal pediatric cardiac screening program, we sought to delineate the spectrum and the trends. METHODS: From 2002 to 2018, citywide screening programs of cardiac diseases for children were performed in Taipei, Taiwan. Participants, mainly students entering the first grade of elementary school, were evaluated using questionnaires, simplified 4-lead electrocardiography (EKG), phonocardiography, and physical examinations. Those suspected of having abnormal cardiac lesions received detailed evaluations by pediatric cardiologists for a final diagnosis. RESULTS: The median prevalence of cardiac lesions in the children was 19.60/1000 (range from 14.9 to 24.65/1000), including congenital heart disease (32.02%), EKG abnormalities (33.34%), mitral valve prolapse (15.17%), Kawasaki disease (6.89%), rheumatic heart disease (0.17%) and others (12.41%). A significant time trend was only observed in a trend of decline in rheumatic heart disease. The median prevalence rates of congenital heart disease, Kawasaki disease, rheumatic heart disease, mitral valve prolapse, and EKG abnormalities were 6.20, 1.37, 0, 3.12, and 6.46 per 1000 children, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study, based on a citywide cardiac screening program, indicates that the spectrum of cardiac diseases in children has not changed in recent decades, except for a decline or disappearance of rheumatic heart disease in the Taipei metropolitan area. While congenital heart disease and EKG abnormalities were the most common, Kawasaki disease was the most commonly acquired heart disease in children.
Authors: Christopher J L Murray; Theo Vos; Rafael Lozano; Mohsen Naghavi; Abraham D Flaxman; Catherine Michaud; Majid Ezzati; Kenji Shibuya; Joshua A Salomon; Safa Abdalla; Victor Aboyans; Jerry Abraham; Ilana Ackerman; Rakesh Aggarwal; Stephanie Y Ahn; Mohammed K Ali; Miriam Alvarado; H Ross Anderson; Laurie M Anderson; Kathryn G Andrews; Charles Atkinson; Larry M Baddour; Adil N Bahalim; Suzanne Barker-Collo; Lope H Barrero; David H Bartels; Maria-Gloria Basáñez; Amanda Baxter; Michelle L Bell; Emelia J Benjamin; Derrick Bennett; Eduardo Bernabé; Kavi Bhalla; Bishal Bhandari; Boris Bikbov; Aref Bin Abdulhak; Gretchen Birbeck; James A Black; Hannah Blencowe; Jed D Blore; Fiona Blyth; Ian Bolliger; Audrey Bonaventure; Soufiane Boufous; Rupert Bourne; Michel Boussinesq; Tasanee Braithwaite; Carol Brayne; Lisa Bridgett; Simon Brooker; Peter Brooks; Traolach S Brugha; Claire Bryan-Hancock; Chiara Bucello; Rachelle Buchbinder; Geoffrey Buckle; Christine M Budke; Michael Burch; Peter Burney; Roy Burstein; Bianca Calabria; Benjamin Campbell; Charles E Canter; Hélène Carabin; Jonathan Carapetis; Loreto Carmona; Claudia Cella; Fiona Charlson; Honglei Chen; Andrew Tai-Ann Cheng; David Chou; Sumeet S Chugh; Luc E Coffeng; Steven D Colan; Samantha Colquhoun; K Ellicott Colson; John Condon; Myles D Connor; Leslie T Cooper; Matthew Corriere; Monica Cortinovis; Karen Courville de Vaccaro; William Couser; Benjamin C Cowie; Michael H Criqui; Marita Cross; Kaustubh C Dabhadkar; Manu Dahiya; Nabila Dahodwala; James Damsere-Derry; Goodarz Danaei; Adrian Davis; Diego De Leo; Louisa Degenhardt; Robert Dellavalle; Allyne Delossantos; Julie Denenberg; Sarah Derrett; Don C Des Jarlais; Samath D Dharmaratne; Mukesh Dherani; Cesar Diaz-Torne; Helen Dolk; E Ray Dorsey; Tim Driscoll; Herbert Duber; Beth Ebel; Karen Edmond; Alexis Elbaz; Suad Eltahir Ali; Holly Erskine; Patricia J Erwin; Patricia Espindola; Stalin E Ewoigbokhan; Farshad Farzadfar; Valery Feigin; David T Felson; Alize Ferrari; Cleusa P Ferri; Eric M Fèvre; Mariel M Finucane; Seth Flaxman; Louise Flood; Kyle Foreman; Mohammad H Forouzanfar; Francis Gerry R Fowkes; Marlene Fransen; Michael K Freeman; Belinda J Gabbe; Sherine E Gabriel; Emmanuela Gakidou; Hammad A Ganatra; Bianca Garcia; Flavio Gaspari; Richard F Gillum; Gerhard Gmel; Diego Gonzalez-Medina; Richard Gosselin; Rebecca Grainger; Bridget Grant; Justina Groeger; Francis Guillemin; David Gunnell; Ramyani Gupta; Juanita Haagsma; Holly Hagan; Yara A Halasa; Wayne Hall; Diana Haring; Josep Maria Haro; James E Harrison; Rasmus Havmoeller; Roderick J Hay; Hideki Higashi; Catherine Hill; Bruno Hoen; Howard Hoffman; Peter J Hotez; Damian Hoy; John J Huang; Sydney E Ibeanusi; Kathryn H Jacobsen; Spencer L James; Deborah Jarvis; Rashmi Jasrasaria; Sudha Jayaraman; Nicole Johns; Jost B Jonas; Ganesan Karthikeyan; Nicholas Kassebaum; Norito Kawakami; Andre Keren; Jon-Paul Khoo; Charles H King; Lisa Marie Knowlton; Olive Kobusingye; Adofo Koranteng; Rita Krishnamurthi; Francine Laden; Ratilal Lalloo; Laura L Laslett; Tim Lathlean; Janet L Leasher; Yong Yi Lee; James Leigh; Daphna Levinson; Stephen S Lim; Elizabeth Limb; John Kent Lin; Michael Lipnick; Steven E Lipshultz; Wei Liu; Maria Loane; Summer Lockett Ohno; Ronan Lyons; Jacqueline Mabweijano; Michael F MacIntyre; Reza Malekzadeh; Leslie Mallinger; Sivabalan Manivannan; Wagner Marcenes; Lyn March; David J Margolis; Guy B Marks; Robin Marks; Akira Matsumori; Richard Matzopoulos; Bongani M Mayosi; John H McAnulty; Mary M McDermott; Neil McGill; John McGrath; Maria Elena Medina-Mora; Michele Meltzer; George A Mensah; Tony R Merriman; Ana-Claire Meyer; Valeria Miglioli; Matthew Miller; Ted R Miller; Philip B Mitchell; Charles Mock; Ana Olga Mocumbi; Terrie E Moffitt; Ali A Mokdad; Lorenzo Monasta; Marcella Montico; Maziar Moradi-Lakeh; Andrew Moran; Lidia Morawska; Rintaro Mori; Michele E Murdoch; Michael K Mwaniki; Kovin Naidoo; M Nathan Nair; Luigi Naldi; K M Venkat Narayan; Paul K Nelson; Robert G Nelson; Michael C Nevitt; Charles R Newton; Sandra Nolte; Paul Norman; Rosana Norman; Martin O'Donnell; Simon O'Hanlon; Casey Olives; Saad B Omer; Katrina Ortblad; Richard Osborne; Doruk Ozgediz; Andrew Page; Bishnu Pahari; Jeyaraj Durai Pandian; Andrea Panozo Rivero; Scott B Patten; Neil Pearce; Rogelio Perez Padilla; Fernando Perez-Ruiz; Norberto Perico; Konrad Pesudovs; David Phillips; Michael R Phillips; Kelsey Pierce; Sébastien Pion; Guilherme V Polanczyk; Suzanne Polinder; C Arden Pope; Svetlana Popova; Esteban Porrini; Farshad Pourmalek; Martin Prince; Rachel L Pullan; Kapa D Ramaiah; Dharani Ranganathan; Homie Razavi; Mathilda Regan; Jürgen T Rehm; David B Rein; Guiseppe Remuzzi; Kathryn Richardson; Frederick P Rivara; Thomas Roberts; Carolyn Robinson; Felipe Rodriguez De Leòn; Luca Ronfani; Robin Room; Lisa C Rosenfeld; Lesley Rushton; Ralph L Sacco; Sukanta Saha; Uchechukwu Sampson; Lidia Sanchez-Riera; Ella Sanman; David C Schwebel; James Graham Scott; Maria Segui-Gomez; Saeid Shahraz; Donald S Shepard; Hwashin Shin; Rupak Shivakoti; David Singh; Gitanjali M Singh; Jasvinder A Singh; Jessica Singleton; David A Sleet; Karen Sliwa; Emma Smith; Jennifer L Smith; Nicolas J C Stapelberg; Andrew Steer; Timothy Steiner; Wilma A Stolk; Lars Jacob Stovner; Christopher Sudfeld; Sana Syed; Giorgio Tamburlini; Mohammad Tavakkoli; Hugh R Taylor; Jennifer A Taylor; William J Taylor; Bernadette Thomas; W Murray Thomson; George D Thurston; Imad M Tleyjeh; Marcello Tonelli; Jeffrey A Towbin; Thomas Truelsen; Miltiadis K Tsilimbaris; Clotilde Ubeda; Eduardo A Undurraga; Marieke J van der Werf; Jim van Os; Monica S Vavilala; N Venketasubramanian; Mengru Wang; Wenzhi Wang; Kerrianne Watt; David J Weatherall; Martin A Weinstock; Robert Weintraub; Marc G Weisskopf; Myrna M Weissman; Richard A White; Harvey Whiteford; Natasha Wiebe; Steven T Wiersma; James D Wilkinson; Hywel C Williams; Sean R M Williams; Emma Witt; Frederick Wolfe; Anthony D Woolf; Sarah Wulf; Pon-Hsiu Yeh; Anita K M Zaidi; Zhi-Jie Zheng; David Zonies; Alan D Lopez; Mohammad A AlMazroa; Ziad A Memish Journal: Lancet Date: 2012-12-15 Impact factor: 79.321