CHICAGO – Roughly 2 million American children and adults are living with a congenital heart disease.
The estimate is based on congenital heart disease rates in Quebec during 2000 and extrapolated to the 2010 U.S. population. The estimates project that roughly one million of these are American children, aged 17 years or younger, and 1 million are adults, and that about 12% of these patients have severe congenital heart disease, Dr. Ariane J. Marelli and her associates reported in a poster at the meeting. The estimates showed a slight preponderance of adults with congenital heart disease, compared with children, and also a slight preponderance of women and girls with congenital heart disease, compared with men and boys.
"The growing public health importance of congenital heart disease across the life span emphasizes the need for a public health surveillance infrastructure in the United States," wrote Dr. Marelli, a cardiologist and director of the Adult Unit for Congenital Heart Diseases at McGill University in Montreal, and her associates. "These estimates should inform future planning and organization to ensure a medical work force trained to provide optimal specialized care to individuals with congenital heart disease throughout childhood, adolescence, and mature adulthood."
Dr. Marelli and her associates created the Quebec Congenital Heart Disease database by combining data from three province-wide administrative data bases (Circulation 2007;115:163-72). They then applied the congenital heart disease prevalence numbers from Quebec in 2000 to the U.S. population in 2010 by making several extrapolations and adjustments and by using U.S. population statistics collected by the 2010 Census. The adjustments included projecting prevalence and severity levels from 2000 to 2010, and taking into account racial and ethnic differences between Quebec and the United States.
Dr. Marelli said that she had no disclosures.