Congenital cardiovascular disease is thecommonest category in congenital deformities. The mild patients areasymptomatic and can be detected during the physical examination. In severecases, the patients can experience dyspnea, cyanosis and apsychia after movement; in older children, growth and developmental retardation can beobserved. The presence of symptoms are related with the manifestations as wellas the disease type and the presence of complications. According to the hemadynamics in combination withphysio-pathological changes, it can be classified into three types: I. No shunt type. II. Left-to-right shunttype. III. Right-to-left shunt type.
Congenital heart diseases
During the human embryonic development (thefirst two to three months of early pregnancy), the heart with abnormal localautomatic structures induced by disorder of formation of heart and greatvessels or with unclosed tunnels that should be automatically closed afterbirth is called congenital heart disease. Except that some interventricular septal defects have the chance ofself-union before the age of 5 Y, most patients need surgical treatment.Clinically, heart function insufficiency, cyanosis and dysplasia etc. are themain manifestations.
Congenital heart disease is the cardiovascular deformity induced by cardiovascular developmental abnormalities during the fetal period, and it is the commonest heart disease in infants. Theincidence rate occupies 0.8% of the babies, and 60% of them died before the ageof 1 Y. The onset can be related with inheritance especially the chromosomal translocation and aberration, intrauterine infection, contact with high-doseradiation exposure and drug factors etc. With the rapid development ofcardiovascular medicine, many common congenital heart diseases are accurately treated and reasonably treated, and the mortality rate has droppedsignificantly.
Traditional classification methods
Congenital heart disease can be classifiedinto three groups according to the hemodynamic changes.
(1) No shunt type (no cyanosis type) Namelyno abnormal pathway and shunt at two sides of heart or between arteries andveins, and no generation of cyanosis. Including arterial constriction, lungartery valve stenosis, aortic valve stenosis and simple lung arterial dilation,and primary pulmonary arterial hypertension etc.
(2) Left-to-right shunt group (latentcyanosis type) This type has abnormal tunnels between the left blood circulation route and the right blood circulation route. Because the pressureof the left-semi systemic circulation of heart is greater than that of theright-semi pulmonary circulation, the blood flow has shunt from the left to theright and does not produce cyanosis. Under the circumstance of crying, breathholding or any pathological condition, an increase in pulmonary arterial orright ventricular pressure is induced, and it exceeds the left cardiacpressure.
