Anomalous embryo development causes countless malformations. Reviewing them all is beyond the scope of an anaesthesia textbook. This section will therefore be limited to mentioning the most frequent and most characteristic features among the different hemodynamic conditions. In each case, we will address pathophysiological constraints, target haemodynamics, surgical correction, and the most appropriate anaesthetic technique. Conditions may vary from case to case. The proposed approaches should by no means be considered as one-size-fits-all recipes. On the contrary, the main aim is to understand the mechanisms involved in order to work out the best therapeutic approach.

Paediatric congenital heart diseases are addressed here in anatomical order, following the blood flow through the heart from the vena cava to the thoracic aorta. The same order is applied to the description of adult congenital heart diseases (see Chapter 15).
 

© BETTEX D, BOEGLI Y, CHASSOT PG, June 2008, last update May 2018