Tag Archives: adult congenital heart disease

Introduction As outlined by Prica et al.,1 the number of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) surviving to, and thriving in, adulthood has increased dramatically since the 1980s due to earlier diagnosis and advances in transcatheter and surgical techniques. Consequently, the adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) population is larger than ever, and many patients will present to non-ACHD specialists with a variety of medical problems, cardiac or otherwise. Therefore, a working understanding of these lesions is key for all front-line physicians. However, ACHD remains a highly specialised subject with limited evidence-base. This review ar

Case presentation An 18-year-old woman presented with a three-week history of subjective fevers, nausea and anorexia. Background history included congenital heart disease (CHD) with truncus arteriosus requiring right-ventricle-to-pulmonary-artery (RV-PA) conduit replacements, most recently with a 25-mm ‘Freestyle’ porcine conduit 10 years prior. She was not previously known to our centre. She had no regular medications and no recreational drug use. She originally presented with her three-week history to her general practitioner then twice to a peripheral hospital emergency department (ED) within one week. At all encounters, she was docume

The consultant workforce in ACHD in the UK is small, and faces substantial shortages. With very few trainees currently opting to train in ACHD, the workforce will fall even further behind, as patient numbers and complexity increase.5 A career in congenital heart disease – what does it offer the cardiologist? A career in ACHD offers a professional lifetime of endless variation. In outpatients, you will see patients with infinitely variable anatomy and often complex physiology, over the course of many years, and through many medical and non-medical lifetime events. Fewer patients need inpatient care, and, when required, this is usually due to

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