CT of the congenital heart diseases

Full text: The purpose of this lecture is to examine the role of MDCT in the diagnosis of congenital cardiac malformations - when and how to apply it, as well as some problematic aspects. Imaging methods to study their diversity play a leading role in the earliest diagnosis and treatment of congenital cardiovascular malformations in children and underwent tremendous development over the past two decades. Application of MDCT as noninvasive, fast and high-informative method was able to complement the gaps between echocardiography, cardiac catheterization and MRI with new information. Advantages of the method are: short time of the display, extensive anatomical space and ECG synchronized scanning with the possibility of simultaneous imaging of cardiovascular and pulmonary structures. MDCT modern techniques with advanced options for further processing of the images allow precise assessment of extracardiac vessels, lung and airways simultaneously Coronary Vessel, intracardiac structures and entricular functional parameters. The disadvantages of the method are related to the risk of ionizing radiation and contrast medium administration. Application of MDCT in the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases in children requires excellent understanding of normal and pathological characteristics of CT images and an optimal application of the scanning techniques