The prevalence of congenital heart disease (CHD) is between 8 and 10 children per 1000 live births. Thus, it is estimated that 28,846 new cases of CHD emerge in Brazil each year. For about 20% of the cases that are related to less complex defects and those with discrete hemodynamic repercussions, the cure is spontaneous. The average number of cardiovascular surgeries for CHD that are necessary in Brazil is of the order of 23,077 procedures per year, including newborn babies with CHD and cases requiring reoperations. In 2002, 8,092 procedures were actually performed thereby giving a deficit of 65%, with the greatest shortfalls seen in the Northern and Northeastern regions (93.5% and 77.4%, respectively) and the least problems experienced in the Southern and Central Western regions (46.4% and 57.4%, respectively) as illustrated in Table 1.
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