Pediatric precocious heart disease is a congenital disorder caused by abnormal formation of local anatomical structures of the heart and large blood vessels or failure to close channels that should be closed automatically after birth due to factors such as genetics, viral infections, drugs and radiation during the early 2-3 months of pregnancy during the embryonic development of a child.
Depending on the severity of the disease, congenital heart disease can affect the growth and development of children to varying degrees, reduce resistance, and threaten the lives of children with serious conditions. Moreover, the condition of some children with congenital heart disease develops with age, and if left untreated, the opportunity for treatment will be lost at an advanced stage. The safest advice for precocious heart disease is early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment.
How should I treat pediatric precocious heart disease?
Precocious heart disease is often not cured by medication and injections alone. In the past, it also relied mainly on surgical methods to open the chest and heart for correction. With the continuous development of medical technology, a new treatment method, interventional therapy for precardiac disease, is becoming an effective way to cure certain precardiac diseases.
Interventional treatment of pediatric precardiac disease
Interventional treatment of precardiac disease is a minimally invasive method in which catheters and special devices are delivered to the lesion through a punctured vessel (usually the root of the thigh) under the guidance of X-rays or echocardiography. At present, the main methods are atrial septal defect occlusion, ventricular septal defect occlusion, arterial catheter failure occlusion, percutaneous pulmonary valve balloon dilation, etc. It has the following advantages compared with surgical procedures.
1. No incision is needed on the chest and back, and only a needle eye (about 3mm) is left in the groin. Due to the small trauma and pain, it can heal in a few days after surgery without leaving scars; it is also not necessary to open the chest cavity, much less cut the heart.
2. The treatment does not require the implementation of systemic external circulation and deep low temperature anesthesia. The child only needs basic anesthesia without intubation to cooperate, and the older child only needs local anesthesia. In this way, the occurrence of extracorporeal circulation and anesthesia accidents can be avoided, and there will be no effect on the brain development of children.
3.Less bleeding, no need for blood transfusion
4.The interventional procedure is shorter, with a short hospital stay and fast postoperative recovery. Generally in about 30 minutes to an hour to start drinking, 20 hours after surgery can be out of bed, hospitalization 1 to 3 days can be discharged, children with local anesthesia can be completed in the outpatient clinic.
How do I find out if my child has pediatric precordial disease?
Many babies are detected after birth by a doctor’s physical examination when they hear a “heart murmur,” and some children are detected during an examination because they have symptoms. The common symptoms of children with precocious heart disease are
1, poorer development than children of the same age, usually easy to catch a cold or pneumonia.
2. Due to the prolonged lack of oxygen at the end of the body, the fingers and toes become thicker and darker at the end, and the lips turn blue, which is more obvious when crying.
3.When walking or playing, the child often crouches down for a moment due to lack of oxygen.
4.Difficulty in feeding or refusal to feed, choking and coughing, or eating and stopping when eating milk, having shortness of breath and breath-holding.
5.The baby does not like to move around or always cries out tired after moving around, and has symptoms such as excessive sweating and blue mouth and lips.
6.The child complains of chest pain or has syncope, but it is not clear what causes it.
When parents find that their children have heart disease, they do not need to be overly nervous, but can take the following approaches.
1, first take the child to a regular large hospital for examination as soon as possible, especially to receive professional cardiac ultrasound examination to clarify the nature, degree and severity of the heart malformation, etc.
2, should consult with a cardiologist about which treatment (surgery or interventional therapy) the child should take. Some simple precardiac diseases do not have significant physical effects and can be followed up and observed. For example, small atrial septal defects, ventricular septal defects, etc., usually do not require treatment. However, regular physical examinations should be performed to understand the cardiopulmonary load.
3. The appropriate treatment plan should be chosen under the advice of a cardiologist, taking into account your own situation. Whether it is surgical or interventional treatment, if interventional treatment is chosen, parents should find a professional precardiac interventional surgeon to make a surgical plan.