Anesthesia in Pediatric Patients With Congenital Heart Disease Undergoing Noncardiac Surgery: Defining the Risk.

The incidence of moderate to severe congenital heart disease (CHD) in the United States is estimated to be 6 per 1,000 live-born, full-term infants. Recent advances in pediatric cardiology, surgery, and critical care have improved significantly the survival rates of patients with CHD leading to an increase in prevalence in both children and adults. Children with CHD significant enough to require cardiac surgery frequently also undergo noncardiac surgical procedures. With this increased demand for procedures that require anesthesia, all anesthesiologists, and more specifically, pediatric anesthesiologists will encounter patients with repaired or unrepaired CHD and other cardiac diseases in their practice. They often are faced with the question, "Is this patient too high risk for anesthesia?" The objective of this literature review is to provide a greater understanding of patients at high risk and to quantify the risk for patients, their families, and clinicians. In addition, specific high-risk lesions (single ventricle, Williams-Beuren syndrome, pulmonary hypertension, cardiomyopathies, and ventricular assist devices) are described.