[Progress in pediatric cardiology and congenital heart defects]

We present a review of progress reported in the fields of pediatric cardiology and congenital heart disease between July 2004 and July 2005. The review covers diagnosis, medical treatment, interventional cardiology, and surgery. Among advances in diagnosis, we highlight new diagnostic imaging methods such as three-dimensional echocardiography, magnetic resonance imaging, CT angiography, and tissue Doppler imaging. In the area of fetal cardiology, we focus on advances in fetal interventions, such as percutaneous aortic valvuloplasty, percutaneous pulmonary valvuloplasty, and intact or restrictive atrial balloon septostomy. In interventional cardiology, we highlight advances in the application of percutaneous techniques to adult congenital heart disease to help solve problems resulting from previous surgery, and we review new devices for enabling the percutaneous closure of muscular and membranous ventricular septal defects. In cardiac surgery, a number of developments in valved conduits and in aortic translocation in patients with complex transposition of the great arteries are of particular interest.