Tetralogy of Fallot--effect on the family.

The progress of surgery on congenital heart defects in the past 20 years has been impressive. A variety of conditions can now be successfully rectified. For some, surgery can be initiated at an earlier age, benefiting the health and development of the young child and reducing the mortality and morbidity. This is so for children with Fallot's tetralogy, who have had increasingly early palliative operations with, in many cases, total correction of the defect at a later date, which restores the patients to apparently normal life, enabling them to take part in almost any physical activity. For a child born today with Fallot's tetralogy the expectation of life is as yet unknown, but compared with a mean life span of only 12 years prior to modern surgical treatment the prospects are encouraging.