Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease | The Patient Guide to Heart, Lung, and Esophageal Surgery

Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease

Pediatric heart disease is a term used to describe several different heart conditions in children. The most common type of pediatric heart disease is congenital, meaning that children are born with it. Congenital heart defects (CHD) can exist in adults, but are still considered CHD if the adult was born with the disease.

According to the American Heart Association, congenital heart defects (present at birth) are the most common type of birth defect.

They affect 8 out of every 1,000 newborns. Each year, more than 35,000 babies in the United States are born with congenital heart defects.

Congenital Heart Defects

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Congenital Heart Defects

Some of the congenital heart defects that are treated by congenital heart surgeons include:

Aortic Stenosis
Atrial Septal Defect
Atrioventricular Canal Defect
Coarctation of the Aorta
Ebstein’s Anomaly
Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome
Interrupted Aortic Arch
Patent Ductus Arteriosus
Pulmonary Stenosis
Pulmonary Atresia
Single Ventricle (Functionally Univentricular Heart)
Tetralogy of Fallot
Transposition of the Great Arteries
Truncus Arteriosus
Ventricular Septal Defect

Dr. Ram Subramanyan provides additional background on congenital heart defects in this video. Watch as he discusses how defects in the heart can occur while a baby is developing in the mother’s womb.

Much more rarely, children have acquired heart disease, that is, they were not born with heart disease; but they acquired it after birth. These diseases include inflammatory heart disease such as rheumatic heart disease that occurs after rheumatic fever or infectious heart disease, such as endocarditis or trauma to the heart (cardiac trauma).

The operations used to treat acquired heart disease in children are similar to those used to treat CHD.

What Is a Congenital Heart Surgeon?

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What Is a Congenital Heart Surgeon?

Elizabeth H. Stephens, MD, PhD, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, describes the responsibilities, training, and specialized skills of congenital heart surgeons, who “touch and fix hearts every day.”