Atrial Septal Defect
An atrial septal defect (ASD) is a hole in a wall inside the heart. ASD is a common heart defect that babies are born with.
 The heart has four chambers or rooms. The two upper chambers are called the right and left atria. The two lower chambers are the right and left ventricles. With an ASD, there is a hole in the septum (wall) between the right and left atria. This hole may be small or large.
With an ASD, blood does not flow through the heart in the normal way. All of the blood coming back into the left atrium from the lungs does not go into left ventricle as it should. Some of the blood flows through the ASD and into the right atrium. This blood, which has already been to the lungs to get oxygen, returns to the lungs. Because of this, your heart and lungs must work harder to pump more blood.
As time passes, the pressure inside the lungs gets too high. When this happens, the blood starts to move through the hole in the other direction. Blood that has not yet received any oxygen from the lungs is sent out to the body. This makes your fingers, toes and lips turn blue. The right side of the heart cannot keep working so hard and finally begins to fail.
Treatment for ASD:
One or more of the following treatments may be used to treat your ASD:
Medicine – You may need one or more of these medicines to treat or prevent problems of your ASD: antibiotics, blood-pressure medicine, blood-thinning medicine, diuretics or “water pills,” or heart medicine.
 Surgery – Your doctor’s ASD repair plan may depend upon the type of ASD you have. It also may depend on where the ASD is in the heart wall. Even if you are having no symptoms, closing an ASD early in life may prevent heart problems in later life. If an ASD is repaired early enough in life, you may not need any more surgeries for the ASD. Surgery to close the ASD with stitches (thread) is open-heart surgery. Sometimes a man-made patch or piece of the heart is used to help close the ASD. If a person with ASD has no symptoms, the ASD may be repaired by age 4 or 5. If there are symptoms, the ASD may be repaired by age 1 or 2.
 Treatment without surgery – Sometimes a man-made umbrella-like patch or plug may be put in place to close the hole. This is done during cardiac catheterization so the person does not need surgery.
|
|
