Incidence of antenatal moderate and severe congenital cardiac anomalies in Cairo (a multi-center retrospective study)

• To determine the prenatal pattern of congenital heart 5499 pregnant women did fetal echo to determine the prenatal incidence of moderate and severe heart anomalies.
• Incidence of moderate and severe congenital heart was 1.9%.
• Prenatal pattern differed from postnatal pattern.

Objectives: To determine the prenatal incidence of moderate and severe cardiac anomalies and determine the prenatal pattern of CHD. Study design: Multi-center retrospective observational study. Settings: Cairo, Al-Azhar and 6th October Universities. Patients and methods: 5499 pregnant women in the second and third trimester attending the fetal medicine unit in the three universities from January 2012 to June 2013 for anomaly scan were retrospectively reviewed. Results: One hundred and five cases were diagnosed as severe and moderate CHD with a incidence of 1.9%. Severe forms were approximately ten folds higher than moderate forms. The commonest lesions in order of frequency were VSD (34.3%), HLHS (21.9%) and AVSD (20%). Cases having associated anomalies were 56.2% of affected cases and those with ultrasound markers of chromosomal anomalies were 34.3%. Conclusion: Prenatal pattern of CHD differs from its postnatal pattern with dominance of severe forms. Prenatally diagnosed cases have poorer prognosis than those diagnosed postnatal with high associations with other anomalies especially chromosomal defects.