Adult Congenital Heart Disease Surgery

Congenital Disorders

Congenital Heart Disease, Surgery, Adult

It is now estimated that the number of adults with congenital heart disease in the U.S is over 800,000. Unfortunately, these patients, in some way, have become a lost population. They have congenital abnormalities familiar to a children's hospital, yet have surpassed the age cutoff for admission. Recently, we have developed a specialized program to care for this unique patient population. Dedicated programs such as ours hope to optimize patient care, consolidate specialized resources, provide sufficient patient numbers for training and maintain expertise and facilitate research in this unique population.

In the United States, approximately 30,000 children are born with congenital heart disease every year. As technology, operative technique, and critical care medicine have improved significantly over the years, more of these children are surviving into adulthood. Care of the congenital cardiac surgical patient requires a concerted effort on the part of the surgeons, perfusionists, anesthesiologists, intensivists, nurses, respiratory therapists, rehabilitation services and social workers. It is hoped that the same excellent care received in a children's congenital heart surgery program can be continued as these patients graduate into an adult program. This is a retrospective chart review examining patients over the age of 18 years who have undergone operations for congenital heart disease. The primary interest of the study is to look at the breakdown of our adult congenital program in regards to location, personnel, and case type. All charts reviewed will be of patients who had their surgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta or Emory University between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2006. We will review approximately 225 charts for this study. The first aim of the study would be to examine the demographics of the adult congenital heart surgery program itself. The following information will be collected: * Location of the surgery - children's hospital vs adult hospital * Surgeon - adult cardiac surgeon vs congenital cardiac surgeon The second aim of the study would be to analyze the types of surgeries being performed. The following information will be collected: * Pathologic diagnosis * Number of re-operative sternotomies * Number of open-heart surgeries The third aim of the study would be to analyze our outcomes. The following information will be collected: \- Number of surgical mortalities

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