Septal Defects

Abstract

The diagnosis and management of congenital heart defects, including septal defects, is driven by cardiovascular imaging. As imaging advances, so does the depth of our understanding of the subtle features of heart defects, which in turn informs clinical management. Septal defects are the most common type of congenital heart defects, with a prevalence of 1/1500 live births for atrial septal defects, 1/1000 live births for ventricular septal defects, and 1/2500 live births for all forms of atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD). Within each of these three categories of septal defect is a wide variety of defect location, type, and size. Clinical management of these defects is largely driven by their appearance on imaging; thus, imaging and display of the imaging data is of particular importance in the management of these patients. In complex septal defects, or septal defects associated with other lesions, three-dimensional (3D) cardiac models can add value, particularly when procedures will be planned to manage the defects. The optimal 3D imaging dataset is the one that will adequate spatial and temporal resolutions to show the subtleties of the defect without cardiorespiratory motion blur, and with adequate signal intensity differentiation between the blood pool and the myocardium, so that the septal defects are clearly visible and easily segmentable.