Congenital Heart Defects. Decision Making for Surgery

The diagnosis and management of congenital heart disease has evolved rap- ly over the last 30 years. In the 1970s, invasive cardiac catheterization was a high-risk procedure for the infant and particularly the duct dependent n- nate. The introduction of noninvasive 2-dimensional echocardiography re- lutionized the diagnosis and management of individuals with congenital heart disease. No longer was the cardiologist limited to a handful of images and patient positions but could spend hours if necessary defining every detail of an individual child s cardiac anomaly. The addition of Doppler and sub- quently color Doppler further increased the importance of echocardiography in the decision making for congenital cardiac surgical procedures. And now we are fortunate to have further additions to the imaging and diagnostic - mamentarium, namelycardiac CTand cardiac MRI. In this most recent volume of the series entitled Congenital Heart Defects: Decision Making for Surgery Dr. Antonio F. Corno provides an up-to-date and comprehensive presentation of the new role that cardiac CT and cardiac MRI will play in the management of congenital heart disease. He has been ably assisted by a cardiologist, Dr. Gigi P. Festa. The book provides a dazzling array of images derived by both techniques and covering the full range ofcongenital heart anomalies. Boththe pre-ope- tive and postoperative usefulness of these techniques is presented.