European study showed that children with congenital anomalies often underwent multiple surgical procedures at different ages across Europe.

AIM: Children with congenital anomalies often require surgery but data on the burden of surgery for these children are limited.

METHODS

A population-based record-linkage study in Finland, Wales and regions of Denmark, England, Italy and Spain. A total of 91 504 children with congenital anomalies born in 1995-2014 were followed to their tenth birthday or the end of 2015. Electronic linkage to hospital databases provided data on inpatient surgical procedures and meta-analyses of surgical procedures were performed by age groups.

RESULTS

The percentage of children having surgery in the first year was 38% with some differences across regions and 14% also underwent surgery at age 1-4 years. Regional differences in age at the time of their first surgical procedure were observed for children with cleft palate, hydronephrosis, hypospadias, clubfoot and craniosynostosis. The children had a median of 2.0 (95% CI 1.98, 2.02) surgical procedures before age 5 years with children with oesophageal atresia having the highest median number of procedures (4.5; 95% CI 3.3, 5.8).

CONCLUSION

A third of children with congenital anomalies required surgery during infancy and often more than one procedure was needed before age 5 years. There was no European consensus on the preferred age for surgery for some anomalies.