Congenital Heart Defect: every drop counts

Congenital Heart puts a huge financial and emotional strain on children and their families. Fortunately, though it has taken AHA), among many others, have been key to acquiring major findings that have improved by far the life quality of patients as well as their life span.

Promising rates

The study “Survival in Children With Congenital Heart Disease: Have We Reached a Peak at 97%?” by Zacharias Mandalenakis et. al points out encouraging evidence:

Mortality rates in patients with CHD, who underwent surgical or catheter interventions starting from the beginning of the ’80s, have declined. Researchers believe this has to do with improved therapy.
On the other hand, over time, mortality also decreased among patients who did not undergo cardiac surgery, which they believe can be explained by the improvement along time of diagnostic tools.

AHA has also good news to share about mortality rates among CHD patients. According to them, in 2019 the mortality rate was 2,890 for all ages, but this number changed after an age-adjusted death rate which showed 0.9 deaths per 100,000 people. This means an 18.2% decrease from 2009.

The never-ending fight against Congenital Heart Defect

The fight to help patients who are born with CHD is much more strenuous with so many and so complex types of Congenital Heart Defects. Evidently, research has been key and even though each little finding seems like a drop of water in the sea, every drop counts. Here you are a selection of 5 recent studies that you might find interesting to read, we tried to select different topics.

“Towards a Unified Coding System for Congenital Heart Diseases”, Jason Chami et. al

This paper expresses the need of a single classification system to ensure continuity of care for patients and to help share a common knowledge of this complex disease.

If we consider that some name this disease “Congenital Cardiovascular Defects”, others call it “Congenital Heart Disease”, and some others refer to it as “Congenital Heart Defect” we´ll realize that the authors of this study have a point.

“A cis-regulatory-directed pipeline for the identification of genes involved in cardiac development and disease”, Nim, H.T., Dang, et. al

This document discusses the conventional approach to identify the genetic etiology of CHD. Researchers consider that path might be overlooking genes that are present in other tissues and however may play an essential role in heart development.

“Assessing Pregnancy, Gestational Complications, and Co-morbidities in Women With Congenital Heart Defects” Cheryl Raskind-Hood MPH, MS et. al

This study found that many women with Congenital Heart Defects experience pregnancy-related health complications, such as anemia, hemorrhage, and hypertension.

“Ventricular septal defect: diagnosis and treatments in the neonates: a systematic review” Ahmed Adan et. al

The recent advances in minimally invasive options have improved patient outcomes, but have raised residual rates. That´s why the authors of this paper suggest careful patient selection for each technique and multidisciplinary team meetings for adequate follow-up.

“Diabetes and Congenital Heart Defects. A Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Modeling Project” Regina M. Simeone, MPH, MS et. al.

Controlling sugar levels before pregnancy in women with type 1 or type 2 Diabetes can be critical to in babies.

We help to save lives

People with Congenital Heart Defects have the disposition to suffer rhythm problems. Our Swiss technology EKGS are powerful tools designed to help researchers and physicians to take care of and follow up patients. We are convinced that together we can improve the lives of people who live with heart conditions, such as CHD.