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CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE: PREVALENCE AT LIVEBIRTH
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1985
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Heart FailurePediatric Heart DiseaseDiagnosisCase SeriesCongenital Heart AnomalyClinical EpidemiologyCongenital Heart DefectPublic HealthCardiologyCongenital Heart DiseaseCardiothoracic SurgeryCardiovascular EpidemiologyMaternal HealthPediatric Cardiac SurgeryNewborn MedicineBaltimore-washington Infant StudyCongenital Cardiac RepairEpidemiologyCardiovascular DiseasePediatricsAdult Congenital Heart DiseaseMedicineCardiovascular Genetics
The Baltimore‑Washington Infant Study is a regional epidemiologic investigation of congenital heart disease, noting that diagnostic changes and methodological differences over time have caused substantial variation in reported rates. The study compares diagnosis‑specific prevalence rates of congenital heart disease with those from eight prior case series. The study identified 664 infants born 1981–1982 in the region with congenital heart disease confirmed within the first year by echocardiography, cardiac catheterization, cardiac surgery, or autopsy, and compared diagnosis‑specific prevalence rates with eight prior case series. The study found a prevalence of 3.7 per 1,000 live births overall and 2.4 per 1,000 for invasive‑method confirmations, with similar rates reported by the New England Infant Cardiac Program and an average confirmed rate of about 4 per 1,000 live births across all case series over 40 years.
The Baltimore-Washington Infant Study is a regional epidemiologic study of congenital heart disease. Among Infants born in the study area in 1981 and 1982, 664 had a diagnosis of congenital heart disease confirmed in the first year of life by echocardiography, cardiac catheterization, cardiac surgery, or autopsy. The prevalence rate was 3.7/1,000 livebirths for all cases and 2.4/1,000 livebirths for cases confirmed by invasive methods only. Diagnosis-specific prevalence rates of congenital heart disease are compared with those of eight previous case series. Changing diagnostic categorizations in the time span covered and methodological differences resulted in great variation of the data. However, the data of the New England Infant Cardiac Program which used the same case discovery methods showed similar occurrences of major morphologic abnormalities, suggesting that these are stable basic estimates in the eastern United States. For all case series, the rate of confirmed congenital heart disease was approximately 4/1,000 livebirths over the 40-year time span.