Picture Courtesy: American Heart Association
The classic form includes four defects of the heart and its major blood vessels:
- Ventricular septal defect (hole between the right and left ventricles)
- Narrowing of the pulmonary outflow tract (the valve and artery that connect the heart with the lungs)
- Overriding aorta (the artery that carries oxygen-rich blood to the body) that is shifted over the right ventricle and ventricular septal defect, instead of coming out only from the left ventricle
- Thickened wall of the right ventricle (right ventricular hypertrophyFactors that increase the risk for this condition during pregnancy include:
- Alcoholism in the mother
- Diabetes
- Mother who is over 40 years old
- Poor nutrition during pregnancy
- Rubella or other viral illnesses during pregnancy
Surgery is now often carried out in infants one year of age or younger with less than 5% perioperative mortality. The open-heart surgery is designed (1) to relieve the right ventricular outflow tract stenosis by careful resection of muscle and (2) to repair the VSD with a Gore-Tex patch or a homograft. Additional reparative or reconstructive surgery may be done on patients as required by their particular cardiac anatomy. (courtesy Wikipedia)
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