Guidelines for evaluation and management of common congenital cardiac problems in infants, children, and adolescents. A statement for healthcare professionals from the Committee on Congenital Cardiac Defects of the Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young, American Heart Association.

Appropriate use of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques is important to ensure optimum and efficient treatment of patients in a costeffective manner. Ideally, guidelines for appropriate, cost-effective care of patients should be based on outcome studies of management strategies. In the absence of reliable outcome studies, the conventional wisdom of experienced pediatric cardiologists can be used to develop guidelines. However, such guidelines must be subjected to review when outcome studies become available. In addition, the guidelines should change as diagnostic and therapeutic technologies change. Approximately 50 years of experience in evaluation of patients with congenital cardiac defects has accumulated. Outcome analyses are now available for several conditions and defects, and others are being published. Knowledge of pediatric cardiology is sufficient to allow the development of diagnostic and treatment guidelines for relatively simple but common problems. Recognizing that critical analysis of diagnostic and treatment practices improves patient care and could reduce the cost of medical care, the Committee on Congenital Cardiac Defects of the American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young developed the following sets of management and treatment guidelines. These guidelines are designed for use by boardeligible/certified pediatric cardiologists (hereafter referred to as pediatric cardiologists) and others who have a specialized cognitive knowledge of the clinical and