title: Temporal trends in survival to adulthood among patients born with congenital heart disease from 1970 to 1992 in Belgium.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Over the past decades, the life expectancy of individuals with congenital heart disease (CHD) has increased significantly. However, precise estimates for survival to adulthood are scarce for patients with CHD. We investigated the proportion of CHD patients born between 1990 and 1992 who survived into adulthood. We also compared their survival with that of CHD patients born in earlier eras and evaluated survival as a function of the type of heart defect.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We reviewed the CHD program administrative and clinical database at the University Hospitals Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) and analyzed the records of 7497 CHD patients born from 1970 to 1992. Survival to 18 years of age in patients born between 1990 and 1992 was 88.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 86.3% to 90.5%), which was significantly greater than that of patients born in previous decades (P<0.0001). For patients born between 1990 and 1992, survival into adulthood for those with mild heart defects was 98.0% (95% CI, 95.8% to 99.1%), whereas survival for those with moderate- and severe-complexity heart defects was 90.0% (95% CI, 86.8% to 92.5%) and 56.4% (95% CI, 47.4% to 64.5%), respectively. Analysis per heart defect confirmed these findings, demonstrating that patients with univentricular heart (49.1% [95% CI, 30.8% to 65.1%]) and hypoplastic left heart syndrome (7.5% [95% CI, 0.6% to 26.6%]) had the poorest survival rate.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study demonstrates that almost 90% of children with CHD have the prospect of surviving into adulthood.
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Services and Nursing Research, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 35, Post Box 7001, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. Philip.Moons@med.kuleuven.be
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Moons
authors.forename: Lore
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bovijn
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Budts
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Belmans
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gewillig
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001530:Belgium / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D015996:Survival Rate; D055815:Young Adult