1.Q: What is congenital heart disease (congenital heart disease)?
A: Due to genetics, gene expression, viral infection, drugs, radiation and other factors that cause structural abnormalities in the heart and large blood vessels before birth is known as congenital cardiovascular disease (or congenital heart disease, referred to as congenital heart disease). Congenital heart disease is present at birth, but not always detected, and can be divided into two main categories: cyanotic and non-cyanotic congenital heart disease.
Cyanotic precardiac disease is easily detected, while non-cyanotic precardiac disease is not easily detected in the early stages, and is often discovered during physical examinations or visits to other diseases. The common precordial diseases are: atrial septal defect, arteriovenous ductus arteriosus, ventricular septal defect (all non-cyanotic), etc.
2.Q: Do atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect and arteriovenous ductus arteriosus account for a large proportion of congenital heart disease?
A: The total incidence of congenital heart disease accounts for about 7 to 8 per 1,000 in normal people, and our epidemiological survey shows that the incidence of congenital heart disease in newborns is 150,000/year, and the above three diseases account for 70% of congenital heart disease.
3.Q: How can we achieve early and timely detection and diagnosis of congenital heart disease?
A: Many congenital heart diseases are asymptomatic at the earliest and are less likely to be detected, but are discovered during physical examinations or when looking at other diseases due to heart murmurs. In the above mentioned congenital heart disease, the most important symptom is susceptibility to colds and pneumonia, if not diagnosed clearly and operated early, irreversible pulmonary hypertension will be formed, thus losing the opportunity of surgical treatment.
In conclusion, it is best to make a clear diagnosis of precocious heart disease at the neonatal stage so that the best time for surgery can be determined as early as possible. If you suspect precocious heart disease, you should choose a regular hospital of a certain standard to make an accurate diagnosis by a professional doctor. The heart ultrasound done by a professional ultrasound doctor is the simplest, most direct, basic and valuable method to confirm the diagnosis of congenital heart disease, which can be determined in 5 to 10 minutes.
4.Q: Is congenital heart disease scary? Do all congenital heart diseases require immediate surgery?
A: Congenital heart disease is not terrible, what is terrible is not found in time, not in the best time to treat, so that the development of late stage caused by severe pulmonary hypertension, may lose all treatment opportunities, so to speak, if early examination, early detection, timely treatment, can be completely restored to normal, the growth and development of children are not affected.
Heart disease has its best treatment time, generally the best treatment age range is 1-3 years old, some children even less than 1 year old need to receive surgery, once lost this time may be a lifelong regret, some although the surgery, but because they missed the best period of early treatment, affecting the growth and development of children and even life. The rapid development of cardiac surgery and medical interventional techniques has made it possible to perform surgery for precocious heart disease entirely from the point of view of the condition, without special consideration for the age of the child. Parents of children should go to a cardiovascular hospital for diagnosis and treatment by a cardiac surgeon as soon as possible under safe and guaranteed conditions to avoid missing the best time for surgery.
In some cases, interventional blocking is all that is needed to cure the disease. But each condition should be analyzed specifically, individual differences, should listen to the advice of experts, because the development of the condition of precardiac disease to a certain extent can lead to pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary hypertension may lose the opportunity to treat, if it is severe pulmonary hypertension, then the opportunity to treat is lost, the lesion is very serious, even the conditions of extracardiac surgery are lost, very unfortunate. Therefore, in principle, the key to all precordial disease is early detection, early in safe and guaranteed conditions as soon as possible to the cardiovascular disease specialist hospital, by a very skilled surgical experts to treat.
5.Q: What is the interventional blocking procedure for precordial disease, is it painful? Does it take a long time?
A: Interventional blocking of congenital heart disease is a new treatment method, for most patients is a blessing, interventional blocking is to use a specially designed blocking device through the catheter into the blood vessels to the heart gap, the doctor in vitro manipulation, the small umbrella slowly opened, blocking the gap, only a little pain when playing anesthesia, almost no feeling, the time is very short, the puncture to only 2-4 mm so little, after surgery After the operation, the patient can be discharged in 2-3 days.
Its superiority is that it avoids the trauma and danger of open-heart surgery, the patient suffers little pain, the recovery time is short, the complications are few, the efficacy is reliable, and it has the incomparable advantages of surgery. However, many patients have little understanding of this treatment method and have concerns that the treatment is not complete, including doctors who are not specialized in this field also have insufficient knowledge of this, in fact, once this treatment is successful, it should be lifelong and generally does not require a second treatment. Of course, this must be carried out by a specialized doctor with considerable experience.
6.Q: Which precordial diseases are suitable for interventional treatment?
A: At present, most of the atrial septal defects, ventricular septal defects, patent ductus arteriosus and pulmonary valve stenosis can be completely cured by interventional treatment, and the children can live, study and work as normal people after the operation. The success rate of interventional treatment has reached 95% to 100%.
7.Q: What are the advantages of interventional treatment for precordial disease?
A: Traditional open-heart surgery for precordial disease requires three hurdles: general anesthesia, open-heart surgery and postoperative recovery, and it leaves lifelong scars.
Compared with this, the advantages of interventional treatment are as follows
(1) Small trauma: No incision is required on the back of the chest, only a small incision of 2-4 mm in the groin (usually no scarring). There is no need to open the chest cavity and pericardium, let alone cut the heart, so there is almost no damage to the heart;
(2) No general anesthesia is needed for children over 10 years of age: only local anesthesia is given in the groin, avoiding accidents that may arise from general anesthesia.
(3) No need for blood transfusion: Because of the low bleeding of interventional treatment, no blood transfusion is needed, which avoids infectious diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS that may be caused by blood transfusion;
(4) Short procedure: The interventional procedure is short, for example, it takes only about 30 minutes to seal an atrial septal defect, and the child can get up and move around 6 to 12 hours after the procedure, and can be discharged 2 to 3 days after the procedure;
(5) No rejection: Since the blockers currently used are made of nickel-titanium memory alloy, they are non-antigenic and do not produce rejection in the child’s body.
8.Q: Which conditions are not suitable?
(1) The following children with ventricular septal defect are not suitable for intervention: concurrent cardiac malformation requiring surgery; pulmonary venous malformation drainage; severe pulmonary hypertension – with bidirectional shunt; with atrial fibrillation (a kind of heart rate arrhythmia).
(2) The following children with ventricular septal defect should not receive interventional treatment: the vessel is too thin and the delivery sheath is difficult to insert; the anatomical location of the defect is poor and the function of the aortic valve may be affected after placing the blocker.
(3) The following children with patent ductus arteriosus should not receive interventional treatment: coexistence of multiple heart defects or malformations; low weight of the child is too low.
9.Q: Will the blocker come off during future exercise after it is placed in the heart? How long is the life of the blocker? Will it fall off as the heart grows older?
A: Push-pull test will be done before releasing the blocker during the surgery. The blocker will be released only after the heart ultrasound has observed that the blocker has been well placed in the heart defect and pushed and pulled, and the blocker is considered to be well positioned and stable. It is very unlikely that the blocker will fall out. The blocker is made of memory alloy and becomes the core when placed in the heart. The outside fibrous tissue, blood tangible components, and fibrin are tightly attached to the blocker and covered by the outside tissue, and the blocker will not fall off due to growth, even though the heart and the outside tissue grow. The life span of a pacemaker is 7-8 years, while a blocker can be used for life.