Differences in Surgical Results according to the Prenatal Diagnosis of Critical Congenital Heart Disease

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Objective: Until recently, the prenatal diagnoses of critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) has increased in Korea and undergone meaningful improvements. We aimed to investigate how the prenatal diagnosis of CCHD is effective in not only survival, but also extra-cardiac morbidity.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 303 patients who underwent cardiac surgery within 30 days after birth due to CCHD from 2012 to 2020 at the Samsung Medical Center. Of the 303 patients, 157 patients (51.8%) were diagnosed prenatally and whose mortality and morbidity after the operations were compared with 146 patients without prenatal diagnoses.
Results: Overall, there was no significant difference between CCHD patients with prenatal diagnoses and postnatal diagnoses in Apgar score, postoperative lengths of hospital stay (30.5 vs. 37.1 days), early postoperative mortality (11.4% vs. 6.2%), and overall mortality (14.6% vs. 11.0%). In addition, neurologic morbidities, hearing impairment, visual impairment, and growth delay did not differ between the groups. The ages of operation were significantly younger and fewer patients were transferred from other hospitals.
Conclusion: There were no differences in overall postoperative mortality and morbidity, but younger ages of operation and lower rates of referral were observed due to the prenatal diagnoses.