Prenatal ultrasound screening of congenital heart disease in an unselected national population: a 21-year experience

Abstract

The nationwide prenatal ultrasound screening programme enabled detection of major cardiac abnormalities in 1/3 of patients born with any CHD and 80% of those with critical forms. Nevertheless, owing to the severity of lesions and associated extracardiac anomalies, the overall mortality of antenatally diagnosed CHD remains high. These findings are important for the understanding natural history of CHD for the establishing of screening programmes in Europe.