The problem of comparative analysis of birth prevalence of congenital cardiovascular malformations.

A number of published papers have dealt with the comparison of birth prevalences of congenital cardiovascular malformation (CCVMs). The feasibility of meaningful intercountry comparison was explored during the visiting fellowships to Dr Andrew Czeizel of Charlotte Ferencz and Dr Francine Lys. Data from three Hungarian studies, one USA and one Belgian study are presented here for selected CCVMs.

Incidence of congenital rubella syndrome in 19 regions of Europe in 1980-1986.

Twenty-five cases of congenital rubella syndrome were recorded in 1,458,126 live births in 19 EUROCAT birth defects registries from 1980 to 1986. During the study period, the incidence declined steadily from 3.50 to 0.

Evaluation of routine ultrasound examination for the prenatal diagnosis of malformation.

In 1986, a retrospective survey was undertaken in the southern part of the province of Hainaut, Belgium, in order to measure the frequency of ultrasound examinations during pregnancy and to evaluate the effectiveness of the routine practice of echography screening for the detection of congenital malformations in an unselected population. The reference populations comprised 8316 pregnancies covered by the EUROCAT Registry of Hainaut. In 1986, 190 congenital malformations cases were registered.