Population dependent differences of distribution of congenital heart malformations.

The aim of the work was to study the pattern of congenital circulatory system malformations in the newborns in Upper Silesia, Poland (N = 355), and to compare it with the data known from the literature, predominantly with genetically very distant Chinese population from Hong Kong (N = 744). There were significantly more boys (about 60%) than girls (about 40%) in both groups. Much higher rate of the heart defects with pulmonary outflow obstruction was found in Hong Kong neonates (37.8%) than in the Polish ones (16.1%). Left ventricular outflow obstruction malformations were more common in Chinese group (22.7%) than in Polish one (14.1%), as well. On the other hand, Polish neonates were significantly more often admitted to cardiological hospital because of left-to-right shunts (37.7%) as compared to Chinese population (15.5%). The rate of complete transposition of great arteries was similar in both studied groups (12.1% in Poland versus 12.4% in Hong Kong). So called common mixing malformations were not significantly more often found in Polish newborns (12.1%) than in Hong Kong ones (8.3%). It is concluded that it significant race dependent distribution difference of congenital heart malformations exists between Polish (Silesian) and Chinese (Hong Kong) newborn populations. On the other hand the pattern of congenital heart malformations found in Polish newborns seems to be not very different from these ones, known from literature, described in the USA or in Europe.