Volume 72 Number 4 July 2005	back to contents

From the Division of Cardiac Electrophysiology, Cardiovascular Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital and Medical School, New York, NY.

Address all correspondence to Davendra Mehta, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.C., Director, Electrophysiology Section and Cardiac Arrhythmia Service, Cardiovascular Institute, Box 1054, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One East 100th Street, New York, NY 10029; e-mail: davendra.mehta@mssm.edu

Adapted from a Grand Rounds presentation to the Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY on February 3, 2004, and updated as of February 2005.

Abstract

Over the past few decades, surgical advances have helped to prolong the lives of many young patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). However, as these patients reach adulthood, they are at risk for many late sequelae of their disease or of their corrective surgery. One of the unique challenges associated with CHD is the high incidence of cardiac arrhythmias that arise from the myocardial substrate created by abnormal pressure/volume changes, septal patches, and suture lines. Medical therapy has proven to be disappointing in treating a majority of these cases. Nonetheless, radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFA), an effective tool in treating atrial and ventricular arrhythmias in structurally normal hearts, has been used to treat arrhythmias in adults with congenital heart disease. This review will discuss some of the common congenital heart diseases in adults and the arrhythmias associated with them, as well as the therapeutic modalities used to treat them. Finally, it will present Mount Sinai Hospital’s experience in using RFA for the management of cardiac arrhythmias in adults with congenital heart disease.

KEYWORDS

Congenital heart disease, radiofrequency ablation, arrhythmia.

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