Adult Congenital Heart Service
Thanks to advances in medical and surgical care, most people born with serious congenital heart defects are now surviving long into adulthood. Because few defects are permanently “cured,” however, these individuals require lifelong follow-up care.
At the Boston Adult Congenital Heart (BACH) and Pulmonary Hypertension Service at Children’s Hospital Boston, we have a lifetime commitment to our patients. We offer a full range of inpatient and outpatient clinical services to adults with congenital heart disease and/or pulmonary hypertension, from diagnosis to cardiac catheterization and surgical repair. What’s more, we’re devoted to helping our patients maximize their physical, emotional, medical and social options. Today, these options are greater than ever.
Our patients
Our program cares for adult patients with all forms of congenital heart problems and/or pulmonary hypertension. We currently care for more than 6,000 patients.
Our expertise
The BACH service is one of only a handful of programs worldwide that trains leaders in the care of adults with congenital heart disease (ACHD), and all BACH fellows receive at least seven years of additional training after medical school. Staff members lecture locally, nationally and internationally.
Advocating for patients? quality of life
Many of our doctors are involved with the American Heart Association (AHA), the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA), a national, patient-run group that lobbies to improve the quality of life of adults with CHD through education, outreach and promotion of research.
A new option for those with damaged valves
Most hospitals treat patients whose congenital heart disease involves damaged valves through valve replacement surgery. But surgeons at Children’s have adopted novel techniques for achieving valve repair, rather than replacement, using patients’ own tissues.
Conditions & Treatments
- Angioplasty
- Arrhythmia
- Atrioventricular canal defect
- Cardiac Surgery
- Cardiovascular MRI
- Congenital heart defects
- Double outlet right ventricle (DORV)
- Echocardiography
- Electrocardiogram (EKG)
- Heart and blood vessels
- Heart valves
- Holter & event monitors
- LDL, HDL & triglycerides
- Pulmonary atresia (PA)
- Septal defects
- Syncope
- Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return (TAPVR)
- Transposition of the great arteries
- Vascular Ring
- Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery
- Anomalous pulmonary venous return (TAPVR or PAPVR)
- Atrial septal defect (ASD)
- Bacterial endocarditis
- Cardiac catheterization
- Coarctation of the aorta (COA)
- Cyanosis
- Ebstein's anomaly
- Edema
- Exercise EKG testing
- Heart murmur
- Heart's electrical system
- Hypertension (high blood pressure)
- Patent ductus arteriosus
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Single ventricle defects
- Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) with Pulmonary Atresia
- Transesophageal Echocardiography
- Tricuspid atresia
- Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD)
