Prostaglandin E1: Infants With Critical Congenital Heart Defects

Critical congenital heart defects (CHDs) are life-threatening cardiac lesions requiring cardiac surgery or transcatheter intervention or result in death within 28 days after birth. In infants with critical CHDs, delayed diagnosis and inappropriate management are associated with higher mortality and comorbidities. Antenatal anomaly screening and fetal echocardiography has improved the detection of fetal CHDs, which helps in perinatal management planning with multidisciplinary teams. Even with precision delivery planning, postnatal transition may affect each infant with CHDs differently depending on the variants and severity of the defect. Therefore, it is important to have a thorough understanding of the hemodynamic physiology in infants with a critical CHD during the transition from intrauterine to extrauterine life and alter management accordingly. This review summarizes the care of infants with critical CHDs in the immediate transition period with a focus on cases with distinctive physiology.