From 1 October 2002 to 1 October 2007, 205,917 children were born in Croatia, of which 1,480 children (700 girls and 780 boys) had a congenital heart defect (7.2 per thousand). The most common diagnosis was VSD - Ventricular Septal Defect (34.6%), and it is one of the 13 most serious childhood heart diagnoses.
430 children were referred for cardiac surgery.
556 operations were performed on them, of which 202 in Croatia, the rest abroad.
The overall mortality rate after cardiac surgery is 5%.
Of all heart defects, the most severe and serious form is Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), a condition in which a child lacks a left ventricle.
Simply put, HLHS children have half a heart.
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome accounts for 2.3% of all children with congenital heart defects, and is usually associated with several other serious diagnoses.
Every year, more than a million children in the world are born with a congenital heart defect, 100,000 of them will not live to see their first birthday, and 1,000 will die before reaching adulthood.
In the Republic of Croatia, there is a Reference Center for Pediatric Cardiology at the Pediatric Clinic of the University Hospital Zagreb, headed by Assoc. Prof. D. Dilber, who is also the head of the Clinic.
