[Severe left heart developmental disorder and severe fetal arrhythmia in the same family--a coincidental...

The etiology, pathogenesis and risk for inheritance of congenital heart abnormalities are important questions. The development of fetal echocardiography and fetopathology helped in examination of this problem. Between September 1992 and June 1997 there were found four families where one member of the family had hypoplastic left heart syndrome and other member sustained fetal arrhythmia. The familiarity of hypoplastic left heart syndrome and some special forms of arrhythmias are well known. The reported familial association of these two abnormalities which in the first in the literature, may have a possibility that a sustained ectopic atrial arrhythmias are as severe risk factors for left heart abnormalities as other left heart abnormalities are.