Trends in outpatient visits and deaths due to congenital heart defects in Peru.

Introduction: Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most frequent congenital birth defects, affecting approximately 1% of newborns and constituting the main cause of death among all congenital malformations. The prevalence of CHD in Andean America is heterogeneous and in Peru the burden of CHD is unknown. Objective: To describe the trends of CHD outpatient visits and mortality and their variation according to sex, age and altitude levels. Methods: We performed a secondary data analysis of CHD outpatient visits and mortality using publicly available information from the Peruvian Ministry of Health national registries from 2000 to 2020. Results: There was a statistically significant increase in CHD outpatient visits of 20.4 over time. Pediatric patients, those who lived at low altitude (≤2500 ​m above sea level) and those who lived in the capital of Peru had a higher average number of outpatient visits per 100 ​000 population. CHD-related mortality increased by 0.31 per million population per year. Although this trend was not statistically significant overall, pediatric patients experienced higher mortality than adults. Conclusion: In Peru, the outpatient CHD volume has increased significantly over the last two decades, however CHD-related mortality has remained constant. Children in the first decade of life are the predominant group in both, outpatient CHD volume and mortality.