Pediatric cardiology
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Pediatric cardiology · Mar 2007
ReviewNomenclature and databases - the past, the present, and the future : a primer for the congenital heart surgeon.
This review discusses the historical aspects, current state of the art, and potential future advances in the areas of nomenclature and databases for congenital heart disease. Five areas will be reviewed: (1) common language = nomenclature, (2) mechanism of data collection (database or registry) with an established uniform core data set, (3) mechanism of evaluating case complexity, (4) mechanism to ensure and verify data completeness and accuracy, and (5) collaboration between medical subspecialties. During the 1990s, both the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and the European Association for Cardiothoracic Surgery (EACTS) created congenital heart surgery outcomes databases. ⋯ Collaborative efforts involving the EACTS and STS are under way to develop mechanisms to verify data completeness and accuracy. Further collaborative efforts are also ongoing between pediatric and congenital heart surgeons and other subspecialties, including pediatric cardiac anesthesiologists (via the Congenital Cardiac Anesthesia Society), pediatric cardiac intensivists (via the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society), and pediatric cardiologists (via the Joint Council on Congenital Heart Disease). Clearly, methods of congenital heart disease outcomes analysis continue to evolve, with continued advances in five areas: nomenclature, database, complexity adjustment, data verification, and subspecialty collaboration.
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Pediatric cardiology · Mar 2007
ReviewNeurodevelopmental outcomes following congenital heart surgery.
Advances in both surgical techniques and perioperative care have led to improved survival outcomes in infants and children undergoing surgery for complex congenital heart disease. An awareness is emerging that early and late neurological morbidities complicate the outcome of these operations. ⋯ Modifiable factors include not only intraoperative variables (cardiopulmonary bypass, deep hypothermic circulatory arrest, and hemodilution) but also such variables as hypoxemia, hypotension, and low cardiac output. The purpose of this review is to examine these mechanisms as they relate to available outcome data.
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Pediatric cardiac surgery in developing countries is a major challenge. It is a challenge to employ evolving methods to cater to the surgical needs of a very large number of children with congenital heart defects while dealing with severe budgetary constraints, finding funding to maintain the program, and maintaining quality in the backdrop of constant turnover of trained medical, nursing, and other paramedical personnel. Choosing the best procedure to achieve maximum palliation at lower cost and, when possible, giving priority for one-stage corrective procedures, albeit at a higher risk, calls for practice modifications. Despite improved infrastructure and surgical skills in recent years, in some developing countries, logistics, affordability, late presentation, nutritional issues, staffing, and unfavorable economics continue to negatively influence the overall results compared to those of developed nations.
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Ventricular assist device therapy is continuing to evolve in the practice of pediatric cardiac surgery. Although ECMO is still the most often applied mechanical support for infants and young children, a broader range of pulsatile, paracorporeal, as well as implantable ventricular assist devices are now available for pediatric application. ⋯ Unlike ECMO, these devices can offer medium- to long-term support and have been successfully utilized as a bridge to transplant as well as a bridge to recovery. This review examines the different types of devices currently available, their clinical indications for use, future devices, and the current results of pediatric ventricular assist device therapy in the treatment of heart failure in the pediatric population.
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Pediatric cardiology · Mar 2007
ReviewThe modified Blalock-Taussig shunt versus the right ventricle-to-pulmonary artery conduit for the Norwood procedure.
The initial Norwood procedure remains the highest risk operation for the staged repair of univentricular congenital malformations with associated systemic outflow obstruction. The modified Blalock-Taussig shunt (MBTS) has been implicated as a major cause of not only the operative mortality, but also associated morbidity and interstage attrition. ⋯ The current literature is contradictory, retrospective, and predominantly historically controlled. The Trial of Right Ventricular vs Modified Blalock-Taussig Shunt in Infants with Single Ventricle Defect Undergoing Staged Reconstruction, a randomized controlled clinical trial comparing the two techniques, is ongoing and may provide answers to this controversy.