The incidentally diagnosed adult congenital heart disease during routine medical health checkups in 27,897 Koreans at a single center over seven years

BACKGROUND: The rate of incidentally diagnosed congenital heart disease (CHD) in adulthood has not been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate the detection rate of CHD in adults by routine, general health checkups. METHODS: Data was acquired from 222,401 patients older than 19 years who participated in general health checkups from January 2010 to December 2016. We excluded persons who did not undergo echocardiography during the general health checkups, who underwent echocardiography prior to the health checkups, and who were previously diagnosed with CHD. RESULTS: Among the 27,897 patients, who were included in the final analysis, 293 cases were newly diagnosed as CHD, and the overall detection rate was 1.05%. The mean age of patients with CHD was 48.7 ± 21.5 years, and most of them were female (n = 187, 63.8%). More than two-thirds were between the third and fifth decade of life, and only six patients (2.04%) were older than 70 years. The most common type was bicuspid aortic valve (n = 155). Interestingly, Ebstein’s anomaly that required surgical repair was detected in five persons. CONCLUSIONS: During general health checkup, there were cases of severe CHD that required cardiac surgery upon diagnosis.