Thoracic Key

A functional myocardium is necessary for viability during embryonic and fetal development. As such, the heart is the first functional organ because its ability to distribute essential nutrients to the…

Introduction It is axiomatic that to understand abnormal anatomy, and to describe it adequately, it is necessary first to understand the normal arrangement, including the relationships of the conduction tissues…

Introduction With the arrival of echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), providing the means of noninvasively detecting and monitoring anomalies occurring during pregnancy, the fetus has increasingly become the target…

Introduction It might reasonably be thought that those who diagnose and treat patients with congenitally malformed hearts would, by now, have reached consensus concerning the most appropriate way of describing…

Perhaps one of the most vexing aspects of congenital cardiac disease is the current inability to explain its origin. Environmental causes have been invoked, and until recently only scant evidence…