TY - JOUR

T1 - Anticoagulation in adults with congenital heart disease

T2 - The who, the when and the how?

AU - Jensen, A S

AU - Idorn, L

AU - Nørager, B

AU - Vejlstrup, N

AU - Søndergaard, Lars

N1 - Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

PY - 2015/3

Y1 - 2015/3

N2 - Adults with congenital heart disease are a growing population. One of the major challenges in the care of these patients is to prevent thromboembolic episodes. Despite relative young age and no typical cardiovascular risk factors, this cohort has a high prevalence of thrombotic events. It is difficult to use treatment algorithms from the general adult population with acquired heart disease in this heterogeneous population due to special conditions such as myocardial scarring after previous surgery, atypical atrial flutter, prothrombotic conditions and the presence of interatrial shunts. Furthermore, there is a lack of scientific evidence regarding how to prevent thromboembolic events with anticoagulation in adults with congenital heart disease. The aim of this paper is to review the current literature pertaining to anticoagulation in adults with congenital heart disease and hence enable recommendations for which patients are likely to benefit from which anticoagulation treatments, when they should be considered and how these would be carried out.

AB - Adults with congenital heart disease are a growing population. One of the major challenges in the care of these patients is to prevent thromboembolic episodes. Despite relative young age and no typical cardiovascular risk factors, this cohort has a high prevalence of thrombotic events. It is difficult to use treatment algorithms from the general adult population with acquired heart disease in this heterogeneous population due to special conditions such as myocardial scarring after previous surgery, atypical atrial flutter, prothrombotic conditions and the presence of interatrial shunts. Furthermore, there is a lack of scientific evidence regarding how to prevent thromboembolic events with anticoagulation in adults with congenital heart disease. The aim of this paper is to review the current literature pertaining to anticoagulation in adults with congenital heart disease and hence enable recommendations for which patients are likely to benefit from which anticoagulation treatments, when they should be considered and how these would be carried out.

KW - Adult

KW - Anticoagulants

KW - Heart Defects, Congenital

KW - Humans

KW - Practice Guidelines as Topic

KW - Thromboembolism

U2 - 10.1136/heartjnl-2014-305576

DO - 10.1136/heartjnl-2014-305576

M3 - Review

C2 - 25281599

VL - 101

SP - 424

EP - 429

JO - Heart

JF - Heart

SN - 1355-6037

IS - 6

ER -