Units for Transitioning Pediatric Cardiology to Adult Care with Congenital Heart Disease: Why, When and How?

Congenital heart disease is the most common congenital malformation worldwide; today, 13 of every 1,000 live births and 6 of every 1,000 adults have congenital heart disease. Advances in pediatric cardiovascular surgery, an increasingly earlier diagnosis, and advanced postoperative care, have increased the number of survivors. Survival is > 90% in most countries in the world. And as consequence the number of adults with congenital heart disease has increased. Nowadays more adults than children are living with congenital heart disease, especially in developed countries, and in the rest of world the same situation it's happening. This growing population needs specialized and permanent care. But a great problem is the loss in the follow-up. Recently research’s shows loss in follow-up >60%, or experience lapses in care after leaving pediatric cardiology. As a consequence, the population experiences relapses due to decompensation of congenital heart disease, even decades after leaving attention in pediatric cardiology. Without a doubt, the critical point of loss is the transition from pediatric to adult care (transfer stage). This point definitely requires intervention by the specialists in charge of the patient’s care. As well as in years ago Adult Congenital Heart Disease Units (ACHDU) around the world were created to take care this population; In this opportunity I propose: why not create congenital heart disease transfer units now? This paper answers the questions: Why, When and How, it’s really necessary to create Pediatric Congenital Heart Disease Transfer units (PCHDT units) has the main objective of decreasing patient losses to follow-up.