Trends in the prevalence of congenital hydrocephalus in 14 cities in Liaoning province, China from 2006 to 2015 in a population-based birth defect registry from the Liaoning Women and Children's Health Hospital

// Yan-Hong Huang 1 , Qi-Jun Wu 2 , Yan-Ling Chen 3 , Cheng-Zhi Jiang 4 , Ting-Ting Gong 5 , Jing Li 1 , Li-Li Li 6 and Chen Zhou 7 1 Department of Science and Education, Shenyang Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Shenyang, China 2 Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China 3 Liaoning Women and Children’s Health Hospital, Shenyang, China 4 School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang, China 5 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China 6 Department of Children's Health Prevention, Shenyang Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Shenyang, China 7 Department of Information Statistics, Shenyang Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Shenyang, China Correspondence to: Yan-Hong Huang, email: yanhonghuang_sy@sina.com Keywords: congenital hydrocephalus; Liaoning province; poisson regression; prevalence; time trend Received: July 11, 2017      Accepted: December 05, 2017      Epub: January 13, 2018      Published: March 06, 2018 ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and trends of congenital hydrocephalus (CH) using a large population-based sample with cases retrieved from the Liaoning Birth Defects Registry, which included 14 cities, over a 10-year period. CH prevalence, percent change, average change, and contribution rates of each city were calculated. Statistical analysis was performed using a Poisson regression model. There was a total of 3008 CH cases among 3,248,954 live births during the observational period (9.26 cases/10,000 live births). On average, the prevalence of CH had significantly decreased by 11.84% each year ( P < 0.01). The three leading cities with the highest prevalence of CH were Chaoyang (13.73/10,000), Huludao (13.18/10,000), and Fuxin (12.71/10,000), while Yingkou (6.06/10,000), Dalian (6.27/10,000), and Anshan (6.56/10,000) had the lowest prevalence. Notably, significantly decreasing trends were observed in 10 (71.4%) of these 14 cities. In addition, the cities of Fushun, Shenyang, and Dalian had contributed to more than one-third of the decreasing trend in Liaoning province. In conclusion, this study provides evidence of the decreasing prevalence of CH over a 10-year period (2006–2015) in Liaoning province. Preventative efforts should be strengthened to further reduce the risk of CH in these high prevalence areas.