A Comparison for Infantile Mortality of Crucial Congenital Heart Defects in Korea over a Five-Year Period.

: Nearly half of congenital heart defects (CHDs) related to mortality occur during infancy although advancements in treatments have increased the survival rates. This study comprehensively examined overall and surgical mortality in CHD infants with the highest mortality rates in an effort to improve our understanding of CHD epidemiology. : Participants were drawn from a dataset of 1,964,691 infants born between 2014 and 2018 in Korea. Crucial CHDs are defined here as including diverse categorical defects and classical critical CHDs but excluding simple shunt defects. Overall mortality (procedural and natural mortality) and procedural mortality (interventional and surgical mortality) for infants were analyzed. : The performance rate for multiple procedures in infants with crucial CHDs was 16%. The overall and surgical mortalities of crucial CHDs were 8% and 7%. The mortalities of palliative procedures were relatively high. Procedural mortalities for infants were significantly decreased in the tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), atrioventricular septal defects, and total anomalous pulmonary venous return (TAPVR) compared with overall mortalities for infants. Surgical mortalities for infants involving TOF and TAPVR were significantly lower, but those for infants involving hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) were higher than those for all ages. : Palliative procedural techniques in infants must be improved to obtain better outcomes, particularly in the palliative surgery of HLHS. The infantile procedural outcomes for TOF and TAPVR are excellent and important in order to overcome disastrous circumstances during infancy. This comprehensive study of the overall and procedural mortalities of CHDs may have laid a cornerstone for CHD epidemiology in Korean infants.