Neurology of Congenital Heart Disease: insight from brain imaging

Steven P Miller ^1* and Patrick S McQuillen ²

¹ University of British Columbia, Canada
² University of California, San Francisco, United States

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: millerst{at}neuropeds.ucsf.edu.

Accepted 28 June 2007

Abstract

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a common cause of childhood morbidity, occurring in 6-8 per 1000 live births, with up to 50% of these children requiring open-heart surgery to correct their defect. Although most forms of CHD can now be definitively repaired with neonatal surgery resulting in good cardiac function, neurological deficits are common, particularly in infants. Given the burden of neurodevelopmental impairment following neonatal cardiac surgery, this review will address: the timing of brain injury in newborns with CHD, how the pattern of brain abnormalities on imaging studies, such as stroke or white matter injury, informs etiology, and (3) the surprising predominance of white matter injury in term newborns with CHD.

Keywords: cardiopulmonary bypass, hypoxia ischemia, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, stroke, white matter injury

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