Please wait ! Before you proceed further, have you READ MY DISCLAIMER ? If not, DO IT NOW....or proceed at your own risk.

By now, you are becoming quite an expert on heart disease ! You've learnt about the normal heart and its diseases, and some birth defects and their surgical repair.

If you have forgotten, or don't know about these things, please go back and READ MY ARTICLE on "What is the Heart ?" and then come back here. Otherwise, what follows will be Greek and Latin to you ! We're now getting to a more complicated condition called the TETRALOGY OF FALLOT - or ToF, for short. The diseases I have discussed so far had just one abnormality in the heart - an ASD or a VSD or a PDA, and so on. As the name tetralogy implies, there are FOUR abnormalities combined together in this complex heart defect. ToF is also commonly called the "BLUE-BABY" disease.

• What are the components of ToF ?
• Why is it called "Blue Baby Disease" ?
• What exactly happens in ToF ?
• What is a "cyanotic spell" ?
• What happens if ToF is left uncorrected ?
• What are the surgical options ?
• How is a single stage intra-cardiac repair done ?
• Variations in ToF needing modified repair
• What is an "outflow patch" ?
• When is an intracardiac repair NOT possible ?
• What are the palliative operations for ToF ?
• The Blalock-Taussig shunt
• Other systemic-pulmonary shunt procedures
• What is the outcome after a total correction operation ?
• What is the future course after a shunt procedure ?

I hope you enjoyed reading this piece as much as I did writing it !

Let me know what you think about it. Fill in my "Self-Assessment Form". Or just E-Mail me at "sivaraj@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in".

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