Thoracic Key

On average, up to one-eighth of liveborn infants in the developed world are born prior to term. These rates have increased as a consequence of assisted reproductive technology, and earlier…

Appreciation of complex intracardiac anatomy and spatial relationships is inherent to the diagnosis of congenitally malformed hearts. Beginning over 30 years ago, and until recently, the ability of the clinician…

Chronic cardiac failure has long been recognised as a cause of considerable mortality and morbidity in the adult. The early recognition of cardiac failure in the 17th and 18th centuries…

With cross sectional echocardiography providing the means non-invasively to detect and monitor the evolution of anomalies occurring during pregnancy, the fetus has increasingly become the object of intended treatment. This…

In 1913, Sir James MacKenzie, physician in charge of the cardiac department at the London Hospital, defined cardiac failure as a condition in which ‘the heart is unable to maintain…

The developing heart appears to be simply a smaller version of the adult heart, based on global function. The ventricles of the adult and the developing heart fill with blood,…

The heart is the first organ to become fully functional in the developing embryo, providing the circulatory system necessary for embryogenesis and subsequent fetal development when growth can no longer…

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 the…

The systemic circulation refers to the circulation in which blood is carried from the systemic ventricle, which is the left ventricle in the setting of ventriculo-arterial concordance, through a network…

Understanding the features of the pulmonary circulation is critically important in the management of patients with congenitally malformed hearts. The past 10 years have seen remarkable advances in our understanding…