• paediatric surgery
• congenital abnorm
• cardiac surgery

Congenital heart disease (CHD) has become the most common birth defect and is now the first leading cause of infant mortality due to congenital malformations in China. According to the 2012 Birth Defects Report, CHD has been the first leading birth defect in China since a decade ago. Patients with CHD have reached 2 million in China, and newly diagnosed patients were estimated to be 150 000–2 00 000 annually.1

China has the largest population in the world and with 15% of all children worldwide. In 2016, there were 17.9 million newborns.2 After adoption of the universal two-child policy since 2015, the incidence of CHD may be increased as a result of high portion of women with high maternal age. Though with such high incidence of CHD and large population of patients with CHD, no country-level data registry has been established. Current epidemiology of CHD is regional and not accurate, lacking high evidence. According to the available data, we think that the incidence of CHD is varied across the country. The data of 2011 showed that incidence of CHD diagnosed during perinatal period is 6.8–14.39%. Some regional surveillance data showed that the prevalence of CHD was 3.81% in Jiuquan City from 2002 to 2003, 8.04% in Beijing City during 2007–2012, and 9.04% in Guangdong Province during 2006–2015.3 Concerning the disease types, ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect, and patent ductus arteriosus account for 75%–80% of all CHD. The nationwide epidemiological study on CHD remains difficult in China because of no unified diagnosis techniques and guidelines among different regions, no standard surveillance in the migration population, and lacking knowledge of collecting big data for analysis in the population. A delightful news is that since 2018, the Chinese Government has launched national neonatal screening of congenital heart disease, …