What Every Cardiologist Should Know About the 2018 Updated Adult Congenital Cardiology Guidelines

Abstract

Review the recently updated guidelines for the management of patients with adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) with a focus on the changes between these guidelines and the prior guidelines. The 2018 guidelines for the management of patients with ACHD focused on utilizing the available data and limiting the number recommendations based only on expert opinion. These guidelines implement a new anatomic and physiological classification scheme to guide management of patients, which takes into account both the underlying anatomy as well as residual cardiac disease and symptoms. Given a lack of robust outcomes data for many types of CHD, the new guidelines provide fewer total recommendations than the prior version, emphasizing the data that is available and drawing attention to the need for additional data. The 2018 guidelines provide the field with a comprehensive update in the management of ACHD patients with an emphasis on the available data.