About 4,000 babies are born with congenital heart disease each year, with 10% having severe heart disease needing urgent treatment, says the Department of Medical Services (DMS).
Director-general Dr Taweesilp Visanuyothin said certain cases of congenital cardiac disease are detected while the infant is still in the mother's womb, while others are discovered after the baby is born.
Congenital cardiac disease affects eight out of every 1,000 births here. As a result, in Thailand, where over 500,000 babies are born each year, some 4,000 are born with congenital heart disease, and about 400 of these babies are born with critical congenital heart disease (CCHD), such as Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), one of the main causes of death in newborns in the country.
About 250 cases of TOF occur a year, and all require surgery. When the patients are 12-15 years old, they require another operation to replace the damaged pulmonary valve, said Dr Taweesilp.
Percutaneous Pulmonary Valve Implantation (PPVI) can lessen the possibility of requiring additional surgery. However, it is a specialised treatment that is not yet commonly available in Thailand. The cost per case is 600,000-1 million baht.
Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health has started treating patients with transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement since 2013. It is the first hospital under the Ministry of Public Health that can treat patients with congenital abnormalities using a transcatheter. More than 100 children and adolescents have undergone such replacements, he said.
Director Akkarathan Jittanuyanon said the institute was invited to conduct the first international live broadcast of cardiac catheterisation from the institute's Hybrid Cardiac Catheterisation Room to the Congress of Congenital Heart Disease in 2015.
It did so five times in 2016-2017. The CSI Foundation honoured the institute in 2022 by inviting it to host CSI Asia Pacific every year until 2024, with over 600 attendees from all around the world.
He said the Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health has grown in popularity in the international paediatric cardiology community.
The institute is also recognised as a training centre and has attracted foreign personnel to train since 2013 when the facility began delivering treatment using cardiac catheterisation.