What are the symptoms of congenital heart disease in adults?

Some congenital heart diseases are latent and symptoms only appear when the patient is 30-40 years old, which poses a great threat to the patient's health. The symptoms of congenital heart disease in adults are relatively obvious, and if these symptoms are found, they should be examined and diagnosed in a timely manner.

1. Combined with pulmonary hypertension

The pathogenesis of congenital heart disease combined with pulmonary hypertension is complex, and many factors are involved. However, the main mechanism of congenital heart disease combined with pulmonary hypertension in adults is the existence of left-to-right shunt. If there is a large VSD, pulmonary artery ligation surgery at an early stage can avoid the occurrence of pulmonary hypertension. Therefore, the key to preventing pulmonary hypertension in congenital heart disease is the same as the treatment principle of congenital heart disease: “early detection, early treatment”.

Regarding whether adult congenital heart disease with pulmonary hypertension can undergo interventional treatment, the general experience of relevant hospitals is that patients whose pulmonary artery pressure decreases after interventional treatment have good short-term efficacy, but the long-term efficacy is currently unknown; for patients whose pulmonary artery pressure increases after defect occlusion, if occlusion treatment is performed, the patient's symptoms will be aggravated and the prognosis will be poor.

2. Combined arrhythmia

Adult patients with congenital heart disease, both surgical and non-surgical, may suffer from arrhythmias at certain stages of the disease, which may affect the patient's prognosis and is closely related to sudden death. After interventional treatment to place an occluder, arrhythmias and conduction blocks may also occur due to the direct compression of the occluder on the atrial and ventricular muscles and the conduction system. At the same time, surgical operations can directly cause damage to the sinoatrial node and atrioventricular conduction system. Scars in the atria and ventricles can cause electrophysiological abnormalities and fatal arrhythmias.

3. Combined with infective endocarditis

Adult patients with congenital heart disease have blood pressure gradients at the sites of heart valve abnormalities, vascular malformations, and abnormal shunts within the cardiac chambers, which cause strong blood ejection and vortexes. Under the impact of the blood ejection, the endothelium of the endocardium is damaged, collagen is exposed, and platelet-fibrin thrombi are formed. The vortexes can cause bacteria to precipitate on the damaged endocardium at the proximal end of the low-pressure chamber and at the site of abnormal blood outflow, easily leading to infective endocarditis.