Active clinical trials for "Heart Defects, Congenital"

The hypothesis of this study is a nutrition preoperatively in infants and children undergoing elective cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass leads to improvement in nutritional status, intervention, and that this results in good postoperative results.

Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) is a wellknown comorbidity in cardiovascular disease. Knowledge about SDB in adult congenital heart disease is limited.

During cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) after heart surgery, a child's blood is exposed to many foreign entities. These conditions trigger the body's inflammatory response which results in leaky capillaries, increased swelling and possibly organ dysfunction. Since the early 1990's, modified ultrafiltration (MUF) has been shown to decrease excess swelling, reduce bleeding, improve heart function, and decrease hospital length of stay. Angiopoietins are a family of proteins necessary for both normal and abnormal blood vessel formation. They also appear to play a role in capillary leak. Though MUF has been shown to improve clinical outcome following CPB, there continues to be conflicting reports whether this is a result of the filtration of inflammatory proteins or simply from excess fluid removal. Since angiopoietins appear to play a role in both inflammation and capillary leak, the investigators hypothesize that the benefit seen after MUF is also secondary to its ability to filter out these proteins, especially angiopoietin-2.

This proposal is aimed at developing a novel method for modeling and analyzing clinical factors impacting RV function, which can lead to a more reliable, consistent, and comprehensive pre-operative treatment planning. In particular, the proposed work centers on the creation of an accurate and clinically useful heart model with which to quantify, visualize, and interpret several clinical findings that are central to the medical decision-making process. The hypothesis is that by providing clinicians with 3D models that capture numerous relevant patient findings in an integrated, quantitative manner they can make more consistent, reliable, and accurate clinical assessments and may also be able to predict factors complicit in RV dysfunction and impending failure.

Adults with cyanotic congenital heart disease have elevated levels of plasma proatrial natruretic peptide (proANP) which most likely results in chronic dehydration, leading to reduced oxygen transport to tissues and shortness of breath with activity. The purpose of this study is to characterize adults with cyanotic congenital heart defects with respect to their body composition (water and fat-free mass) and resting metabolic rates. The study consists of several measures of how much body water, fat and lean tissue a subject has, and measures the number of calories the subject's body uses at rest. Adult subjects with cyanotic congenital heart disease will be recruited along with healthy noncyanotic control subjects matched for age, gender, and body weight.

There are few studies evaluating the value of 3D echocardiography in children undergoing congenital cardiac surgery. The aim of this observational study is to describe common and uncommon congenital malformations with the help of 3D echo and compare the findings and the measurements with those obtained with conventional 2D echo.

Background: - People with congenital heart disease may develop heart failure earlier that those who do not have the disease. One theory to explain this is that the heart s own blood supply may be different in people with congenital heart disease. Problems with this blood supply can severely damage the heart. This damage can be studied with a heart imaging test called a cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Researchers want to use this type of scan to look at the blood supply to the heart in people with congenital heart disease. Objectives: - To learn more about the blood supply to the heart in people with congenital heart disease. Eligibility: - Individuals at least 18 years of age who have heart defects caused by congenital heart disease. Design: Participants will be screened with a physical exam and medical history. Blood and urine samples will be collected. Participants will have a cardiac MRI scan to look at the blood flow to the heart. Participants will also have a heart stress test to measure heart function during exercise. Other imaging studies of the heart may be performed to collect more information on heart function.

There are many children that have heart dysfunction because they are either born with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) or developed poor heart function because their hearts are ill. The invention of medical technology helps in the treatment of these children. New heart echocardiogram (echo) techniques including Tissue Doppler (TDI), Tissue Synchronization Imaging (TSI) and 3 dimensional echocardiography (3D) are imaging technologies that we hope will help in the diagnosis and treatment of these children. Tissue Doppler Imaging is a noninvasive technique that measures the speed of heart muscle movement. Tissue Synchronization Imaging measures how well the lower pumping chambers of the heart are working together. A 3D echo is a 3 dimensional picture of a beating heart that allows your doctor to see the heart from any angle. These techniques are noninvasive, meaning on the outside of your body. The size and function of the ventricles (the lower part of the heart) can change under different conditions. Using these techniques we will attempt to better determine how well the ventricles function during illness and health.

The aim of this study is to describe the presenting pulse oximetry reading in patients who have a known lesion which will cause them to have a low presenting oximetry reading. The study hypothesis is that there is a low presenting pulse oximetry in patients with congenital heart disease and that there will be no significant variation in the hourly variation in oximetry readings in these patients.

The primary objective of this study is to determine the clinical benefits of percutaneous intervention to improve pulmonary blood flow on oxygen saturations, symptoms, exercise tolerance and hematocrit in patients with complex cyanotic congenital heart disease who are not candidates for surgical repair.