What does pediatric cardiology do?
Pediatric cardiology is a subspecialty of cardiology that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases in the youngest - children and adolescents up to 18 years of age. A pediatric cardiologist detects and treats both congenital heart defects as well as defects and diseases acquired in the following years of life, in childhood.
With the current progress of medicine, many heart defects - detected early enough - give a significant chance for a complete cure, or at least do not prevent the normal life and activity of the child. However, most children with diagnosed heart defects or diseases must be under the constant supervision of a pediatric cardiologist.
Knowing what a pediatric cardiologist does, we can specify what diseases in children he treats most often. Well, in the youngest, the most common problem is a heart defect, with which the child is born or which appears in the following years of his life. Usually, however, these are congenital defects that may not cause any obvious symptoms for many years. That is why today it is recommended to perform pulse oximetry in newborns in order to detect such defects early.
The most common heart defects in children include:
- ventricular or atrial septal defect,
- defects of the pulmonary valve and aorta,
- narrowing of the aortic isthmus,
- coarctation of the aorta,
- right ventricular hypertrophy,
Fallot's tetralogy.
Acquired defects and heart diseases appear less frequently. They are usually caused by complications after serious infections. In adolescents, however, there are problems with the circulatory system due to obesity, poor diet and lack of physical activity. Some children and adolescents suffer from similar diseases as adults, such as inflammation or hypertrophy of the heart muscle, or arrhythmia.