title: Current diagnosis and treatments for critical congenital heart defects.
abstract: Congenital heart defects (CHD) affect approximately 7% of infants, and account for 3% of all infant deaths. CHD is most often caused by the defects associated with ductus arteriosus, which is a vessel that usually closes shortly after birth. The types of CHD include tetralogy of fallot, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, pulmonary atresia, total anomalous pulmonary venous return, transposition of great arteries, tricuspid atresia and truncus arteriosus. There are some risk factors that can increase the chance of a fetus developing CHD such as prematurity, an existing CHD in a first-degree relative, genetic syndromes, infectionsin utero, maternal drug consumptions and disorders. CHD is diagnosed is through different techniques including pulse oximetry, echocardiograms and physical exams. In this review, we examined the current incidence of CHD, the risk factors associated with CHD, the current methods of diagnosis and surgical options used to repair the defects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Xuzhou Children's Hospital, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221002, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Zhandong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Xuzhou Children's Hospital, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221002, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hongwei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Xuzhou Children's Hospital, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221002, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Fengli
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Xuzhou Children's Hospital, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221002, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zhang
keywords: congenital heart defects; pulmonary atresia; tricuspid atresia; truncus arteriosus