[Occurrence of congenital hydrocephalus in the Czech Republic 1961-1995]

During the period between 1961-1965 the authors investigated the incidence of congenital hydrocephalus (CH) on the territory of the Czech Republic (CR). From a consecutive series of 5,137,907 births in the CR during 1961-1995 2,288 cases of CH were diagnosed incl. 2,024 cases in born infants and 164 were diagnosed prenatally and the pregnancy was terminated. The mean incidence of CH in born children was during the investigation period 3.99 per 10,000 liveborn infants, after adding cases with a prenatal diagnosis the mean incidence was 4.39 per 10,000 liveborn infants. The success rate of prenatal diagnosis of congenital hydrocephalus was on average almost 40% detected cases in the CR during 1989-1995.