Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common form of congenital abnormality and occurs in over 1% of newborns. Approximately 30% of children with CHD have other extra-cardiac anomalies, which significantly increases mortality in CHD patients. It is expected that the number of CHD patients who consult non-specialized hospitals for non-cardiac surgery after palliative or corrective operations will increase because of the extraordinary progression of treatments, such as surgical procedures, interventional procedures, and intensive care medicine, as well as diagnosis. The aim of this article is to enable anaesthesiologists who are not usually engaged in the anaesthesia management of CHD patients to provide perioperative management for CHD patients safely and with confidence by having basic and advanced knowledge about CHD patients and their pathophysiological characteristics.
Anestezjologia Intensywna Terapia 2016, tom 48, nr 5, 320-328Key words: anaesthesia, children, congenital heart diseases, extra-cardiac anomalies, Fontan and hemi-Fontan circulation, Ohm's law, pulmonary vascular resistance Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common form of congenital abnormality and occurs in over 1% of newborns [1]. This frequency is much higher than expected and is still constant regardless of the continuous progression of prenatal diagnosis [2,3]. In addition to the diagnosis, treatments such as surgical procedures [4−7], interventional procedures [8,9], and intensive care medicine [10] have made extraordinary progress in the past several decades. CHD patients tend to have palliative or corrective operations younger than before [11], and the prognoses, especially in the patients with more complicated CHD, have improved markedly [12,13]. Therefore, it is expected that the number of CHD patients who consult non-specialized hospitals for non-cardiac surgery after palliative or corrective operations will increase. Indeed, it has been reported that the risk of perioperative cardiac arrest is higher in CHD children [14]. Although the frequency of perioperative complications for non-cardiac surgery in CHD patients who have no preoperative complications such as pulmonary hypertension, congestive heart failure, or cyanosis, has been reported to be as low as the frequency in non-CHD patients [15], recent cohort studies have reported that CHD patients who were undergoing non-cardiac surgery exhibited increased perioperative morbidity and mortality [16,17]. The aim of this article is to enable anaesthesiologists who are not usually engaged in anaesthesia management for CHD patients to provide perioperative management for CHD patients safely and with confidence by having basic and advanced knowledge about CHD patients and their pathophysiological characteristics [18].