Tetralogy of Fallot in Spain: a nationwide registry-based mortality study across 36 years

Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) is the most frequent cyanotic congenital heart defect. TOF mortality has fallen remarkably in recent years due to therapeutic advances. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to assess temporal and spatial variability in TOF-related mortality in Spain across the period 1981-2016, using data drawn from the nationwide population-based registry. Annual deaths due to TOF were sourced from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics database by reference to International Classification of Diseases (ICD), 9th and 10th Revision codes, namely, ICD-9 code 745.2 (period 1981-1998) and ICD-10 code Q21.3 (period 1999-2016). Age-specific and age-adjusted mortality rates were calculated, as were standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) by province, district and municipality for the period 1999-2016. A total of 1035 deaths were attributed to TOF (57.78% of them were men and 42.22% were women). The age-adjusted mortality rate ranged from 0.75 per 1,000,000 inhabitants (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0-1.36) in 1981 to 0.03 per 1,000,000 (95% CI: 0.01-0.06) in 2016 for both sexes. In 2011, there was a change in the mortality trend, with a significant decrease of 49.22% per year (p