Resumen

VALDES MARTIN, Alexander. Atrial septal defect: a challenge for the adult's cardiologist. AMC [online]. 2012, vol.16, n.1, pp. 97-108. ISSN 1025-0255.

Background: atrial septal defect also known as atrial communication is the most frequent congenital cardiopathy in adults with marked prevalence in women. Many of children and young people with atrial septal defects are asymptomatic and physical findings are insignificant, that´s why survival until the adulthood is the norm. Objective: to deepen knowledge on the diverse anatomical, psychopathological, clinical and diagnostic aspects of the adult’s patients with atrial septal defects with a view to provide an early diagnosis and an appropriate management by their primary physicians. Development: a bibliographic review on the subject was performed. Medline and HINARI databases were used. The chronic volumetric overdrive of the right cardiac cavities may cause deleterious effects such as atrial arrhythmias, irreversible lung vascular disease and, possibly heart failure and paradoxical embolisms. The transesophageal echocardiography constitutes the election technique to evaluate the anatomical localization of the atrial septal defect and its relationship with neighbour’s structures. Conclusions: the diagnosis of an atrial septal defect is carried out starting from clinical, echocardiography and angiography criteria. The closure of an atrial septal defect ostium primum and sinus venosus types is carried out exclusively through the surgical way. The closure of an atrial septal defect ostium secundum provided it meets certain criteria, is the percutaneous one, being the Amplatzer septal occluder device the most commonly used. The closure of atrial septal defect is contraindicated in patients with secondary pulmonary hypertension also called Eisenmenger physiology.

Palabras clave : ATRIAL SEPTUM; HEART DEFECTS, CONGENITAL; EISENMENGER COMPLEX; ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY; ADULT; REVIEW LITERATURE AS TOPIC.

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