Abstract
Recently, long-term survival has been achieved in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) even in severe cases because of the development of medical and invasive treatment, including catheter intervention and cardiovascular surgery. Even without surgical and medical therapy, patients with natal closure of ventricular septal defects (VSD), mild pulmonary stenosis, small VSD, or atrial septal defects can lead normal lives similar to the general population. However, in un-operated patients with moderate to severe CHD, frequent morbidity, such as heart failure, arrhythmias, thromboembolism, and systemic complications, due to cyanosis takes place in their short lives. Also, death of the fetus, neonate, infant, and child are still common. Such complex CHD patients can survive beyond childhood, adulthood, and possibly into their 60s or 70s if patients have appropriate pulmonary blood fl ow with less than mild atrioventricular regurgitation. Adult patients with complex CHD survive and are followed up in many hospitals. In this article, un-operated survival of various CHD will be shown.
