Tony Lambert delphine1939@videotron.ca
2007-01-12
More living with congenital heart disease
Data show advance in detection, treatment
THE (TORONTO) GLOBE AND MAIL
MONTREAL -- The number of adults with congenital heart disease has soared by 85 percent in a generation, an increase that reflects the startling advances in the detection and treatment of heart defects in children.
"This is one of the great success stories of 20th-century medicine," said Ariane Marelli, director of the adult unit for congenital heart disease excellence at the McGill University Health Center in Montreal, whose team reported the findings.
In a paper published in Tuesday's edition of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, Marelli and her team estimate that 1 in every 85 children and 1 in every 250 adults now are living with congenital heart disease.
That translates into about 2 million North Americans -- half of them adults. It also signifies that CHD, once considered strictly a pediatric condition, is now common among adults.
That has significant implications because people with congenital heart disease, while they appear perfectly healthy, require lifelong care and are at higher risk of developing other forms of heart disease, including heart failure and arrhythmias.
The new research is the first to try to pinpoint the number of people living with CHD.
