Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Abstract
Introduction
The success of cardiac surgical techniques and progress of interventional therapies prolonged the life expectancy patients with congenital heart anomalies (CHA). Reduction of mortality and extension of lifespan exacerbated the burden of non-fatal comorbidities. Developmental intellectual disability (DID) is the most substantial non-fatal comorbidities of pediatric patients with CHA. However, no epidemiological study describe the global burden of DID attributable to CHA (DID-CHA).
Research Question
What was the global burden, regional inequality, and age specific discrepancy of DID-CHA?
Goal
The aim of this study is to address the gap of lacking epidemiological data of global burden, regional inequality, and age discrepancy of DID-CHA.
Methods
This was a secondary analysis study by utilizing impairment data of GBD study 2021. Data was collected from the website of Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME, query tool: https://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-2021). The prevalence, disability adjusted life years (DALYs), and their calculayted annual percentage changes (EAPC) across global, both sexes, seven regions, five SDI regions, and 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2021 were investigated.
Results
In 2021, the global number of DID-CHA cases was 1.05 million (95% UI: 0.83 to 1.24 million) with an age-standardized prevalence rates of 15.71 per 100,000 (95% UI: 12.36 to 18.58). From 1990 to 2021, the EAPC of prevalence was -0.15 (95% CI: -0.16 to -0.13). Regional inequality of disease burden of DID-CHA remained prevalent worldwide. Pediatric population, especially neonates and infants, had a more substatial disease burden of DID-CHA compared to adults aged over 20 years.
Conclusions
This is the first study that thoroughly describe the global prevalence, regional inequality, and age discrepancy of the burden on DID-CHA, by utilizing the public data of GBD 2021. DID-CHD is believed to be a progressive issues for the whole-life management of CHD. Future efforts on resource allocation for neurodevelopmental disability in population with CHD should be comparable with the expenditure in reducing CHD mortality. Persistent regional socioeconomic disparities will definitely move to impact the discrepant burden of DID-CHA. Increasing socioeconomic resources aimed at improving DID-CHA outcomes should prioritize in neonate and infants with CHA, as they represent the most critically affected age groups.