Diagnosis and Treatment of Adults With Congenital Heart Disease

Abstract

Approximately 50 million adults worldwide have known congenital heart disease (CHD). Among the most common types of CHD defects in adults are atrial septal defects and ventricular septal defects followed by complex congenital heart lesions such as tetralogy of Fallot. Adults with CHDs are more likely to have hypertension, cerebral vascular disease, diabetes and chronic kidney disease than age-matched controls without CHD. Moreover, by the age of 50, adults with CHD are at a greater than 10% risk of experiencing cardiac dysrhythmias and approximately 4% experience sudden death. Consequently, adults with CHD require healthcare that is two- to four-times greater than adults without CHD. This paper discusses the diagnosis and treatment of adults with atrial septal defects, ventricular septal defects and tetralogy of Fallot.

Keywords:

• atrial septal defects
• ASDs
• cardiac catheterization
• chest x-ray
• dysrhythmia
• ECG
• echocardiograms
• surgical repair
• tetralogy of Fallot
• TOF
• ventricular septal defects
• VSDs

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the librarians at the James A Haley Veterans’ Hospital for providing many of the references cited in this article.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Work in the cardiovascular laboratory of Robert J Henning is supported by a grant from the Children’s Cardiomyopathy Foundation. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Notes

LV: Left ventricle; VSD: Ventricular septal defect.

LV: Left ventricle; RV: Right ventricle; VSD: Ventricular septal defect.

LV: Left ventricle; RV: Right ventricle; VSD: Ventricular septal defect.