Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in Adults with Congenital Heart Disease: Can We Predict its Development?

Over the last decades, progress in pediatric cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology allowed reaching adulthood to a great number of children suffering from congenital heart diseases (CHD). Apart from corrected CHD patients, grownup congenital heart diseases (GUCH) also comprise adults with newly diagnosed cardiac defect. Ebstein’s anomaly, coarctation of the aorta, atrial septal defect and congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries may remain undiagnosed for many years or occasionally identified on echocardiographic evaluation and at least manifest in adult life for the first time with infective endocarditis or effort dyspnea [1]. Therefore it is difficult to estimate the exact prevalence of CHDs in adults. The management of GUCH subjects requires particular expertise by physicians in order to provide the most appropriate treatments.