Tachycardia is common in the pediatric age group. The most commonly seen arrhythmias in children are sinus tachycardia. However, supraventricular tachycardia is the most common tachyarrhythmia that necessitates treatment. Ventricular tachycardia is rare in healthy children but may be associated with sudden cardiac death.  The important risk factors that predispose children for arrhythmias inclu...

THE YOUNG INFANT with cyanotic congenital cardiac disease presents an acute and difficult diagnostic problem. The anomalies responsible for eyanosis in some such infants are now curable surgically while, on the other hand, there remains a group of eyanotic newborn infants in whom the congenital cardiac anomalies are so complex that no surgical procedures for their correction have yet been devis...

Over the past decade, our ability to predict the risk of maternal and fetal complications during pregnancy for women with congenital heart disease has been greatly advanced. Optimal management of such patients with moderate and complex congenital heart disease appears facilitated by a team approach that includes high-risk obstetrical, anesthesia, and adult congenital heart disease care. Accessi...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is quite common in the general pediatric population, Its incidence is thought to be even higher in the population of patients with congenital heart disease, especially in those patients with complex disease and who have had cardiac surgical interventions early in life. There has been controversy as to the safety of ADHD medicatio...

The Notch signaling pathway is an ancient and highly conserved signaling pathway that controls cell fate specification and tissue patterning in the embryo and in the adult. Region-specific endocardial Notch activity regulates heart morphogenesis through the interaction with multiple myocardial-, epicardial-, and neural crest-derived signals. Mutations in NOTCH signaling elements cause congenita...

The Incidence of superior ORS axis in 200 consecutive infants and children with cyanotic congenital heart disease who underwent cardiac catheterization is 26%. Patients with asplenia syndrome, transposition of great arteries, double outlet right ventricle and dextrocardia complex are most likely to have superior ORS axis. The frequency of superior QRS axis in patients with tetralogy of Fallot i...

Objective—To evaluate changes in cognitive and academic functioning following cardiac surgery in children with congenital heart disease. Design—A prospective cross sectional study in which patients were assessed immediately before treatment and 12 months later. Patients—Three groups of children aged 3.5–17 years: a group with congenital heart disease awaiting surgery, another awaiting bone marr...

Afibrinogenemia or hypofibrinogenemia is a quantitative defect in fibrinogen. It is a rare disease with estimated frequency of 1 in 1,000,000 population. Routine preoperative screening tests of coagulation disorders are insufficient to detect subtle disorders of fibrinogen. Herein, we report a child who was supposed to undergo open cardiac surgery for a large atrial septal defect. Preoperative ...

Advances in cardiac surgery techniques and early diagnosis have enabled the increased survival of individuals with congenital heart disease. The investigation of the quality of life in children and adolescents with congenital heart disease provides complementary information to clinical data that can assist in decision making on the part of health professionals. Although many studies have been c...

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth abnormality and the etiology is unknown in the overwhelming majority of cases. ISLET1 (ISL1) is a transcription factor that marks cardiac progenitor cells and generates diverse multipotent cardiovascular cell lineages. The fundamental role of ISL1 in cardiac morphogenesis makes this an exceptional candidate gene to consider as a cause of c...