This article provides expert opinion on the use of cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in young patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) and in specific clinical situations. As peculiar challenges apply to imaging children, paediatric aspects are repeatedly discussed. The first section of the paper addresses settings and techniques, including the basic sequences used in paediatric CMR, safety, and sedation. In the second section, the indication, application, and clinical relevance of CMR in the most frequent CHD are discussed in detail. In the current era of multimodality imaging, the strengths of CMR are compared with other imaging modalities. At the end of each chapter, a brief summary with expert consensus key points is provided. The recommendations provided are strongly clinically oriented. The paper addresses not only imagers performing CMR, but also clinical cardiologists who want to know which information can be obtained by CMR and how to integrate it in clinical decision-making.

This December Issue of Cardiology in the Young represents the 13th annual publication in Cardiology in the Young generated from the two meetings that composed “HeartWeek in Florida”. “HeartWeek in Florida”, the joint collaborative project sponsored by the Cardiac Centre at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, together with Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute of Saint Petersburg, Florida, averages over 1000 attendees every year and is now recognised as one of the major planks of continuing medical and nursing education for those working in the fields of diagnosis and treatment of cardiac disease in the foetus, neonate, infant, child, and adult. “HeartWeek in Florida” combines the International Symposium on Congenital Heart Disease, organised by All Children’s Hospital and Johns Hopkins Medicine, and entering its 16th year, with the Annual Postgraduate Course in Paediatric Cardiovascular Disease, organised by The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia entering its 19th year.

This December 2015 Issue of Cardiology in the Young features highlights of the two meetings that compose HeartWeek. Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute’s 15th Annual International Symposium on Congenital Heart Disease was held at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club, Saint Petersburg, Florida, from Friday, 6 February, 2015, to Monday, 9 February, 2015. This Symposium was co-sponsored by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and its special focus was “Congenital Abnormalities of the Coronary Arteries”. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s annual meeting – Cardiology 2015, the 18th Annual Update on Paediatric and Congenital Cardiovascular Disease: “Challenges and Dilemmas” – was held at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa at Gainey Ranch, Scottsdale, Arizona, from Wednesday, 11 February, 2015, to Sunday, 15 February, 2015.

We would like to acknowledge the tremendous contributions made to paediatric and congenital cardiac care by Juan Valentín Comas, MD, PhD (13 May, 1960 to 16 June, 2015) and Donald Nixon Ross, FRCS (4 October, 1922 to 7 July, 2014); and therefore, we dedicate this December 2015 HeartWeek Issue of Cardiology in the Young to them.

In the United States of America alone, ~14,000 children are hospitalised annually with acute heart failure. The science and art of caring for these patients continues to evolve.

The International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was held on 4 and 5 February, 2015. The 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was funded through the Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program Endowment, a philanthropic collaboration between All Children’s Hospital and the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida (USF). Sponsored by All Children’s Hospital Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program, the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit assembled leaders in clinical and scientific disciplines related to paediatric heart failure and created a multi-disciplinary “think-tank”. Information about George R. Daicoff, MD, and Ed and Sarainne Andrews is provided in this introductory manuscript to the 2015 Supplement to Cardiology in the Young entitled: “Proceedings of the 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute”. Dr Daicoff founded the All Children’s Hospital Pediatric Heart Surgery programme and directed this programme for over two decades. Sarainne Andrews made her generous bequest to All Children’s Hospital in honour of her husband Ed and his friendship with Dr Daicoff in order to support cardiovascular surgery research efforts.

It is frequent, in the current era, to encounter congenital cardiac malformations described in terms of “cor triatriatum”. But can hearts be truly found with three atrial chambers? The morphological method, emphasised by Van Praagh et al, states that structures within the heart should be defined on the basis of their most constant components. In the atrial chambers, it is the appendages that are the most constant components, and to the best of our knowledge, hearts can only possess two appendages, which can be of either right or left morphology. The hearts described on the basis of “cor triatriatum”, nonetheless, can also be analysed on the basis of division of either the morphologically right or the morphologically left atriums. In this review, we provide a description of cardiac embryology, showing how each of the atrial chambers possesses part of the embryological body, along with an appendage, a vestibule, a venous component, and a septum that separates them. We then show how it is, indeed, the case that the hearts described in terms of “cor triatriatum” can be readily understood on the basis of division of these atrial components. In the right atrium, it is the venous valves that divide the chamber. In the left atrium, it is harder to provide an explanation for the shelf that produces atrial division. We also contrast the classic examples of the divided atrial chambers with the vestibular shelf that produces supravalvar stenosis in the morphologically left atrium, showing that this form of obstruction needs to be distinguished from the fibrous shelves producing intravalvar obstruction.

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy is characterised by progressive, fibrofatty replacement of myocardium, and ventricular arrhythmias, and its prognosis is usually poor. Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy associated with atrial septal defect is very rare, and this combination may make the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis difficult. We present a case of a patient with this association who underwent interventional treatment with a septal defect occluder. Transcatheter closure of atrial septal defect in a patient with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy is hitherto unreported. During a 3-year follow-up he remained relatively stable. We also review the cases reported in the medical literature describing this uncommon association between arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy and atrial septal defect or patent foramen ovale.

Donald Nixon Ross, FRCS (4 October 1922 to 7 July 2014) was a South African-born British cardiothoracic surgeon, who developed the pulmonary autograft, known as the Ross procedure, for the treatment of aortic valve disease, and also performed the first heart transplant in the United Kingdom in 1968. This paper, written by Jane Somerville, Professor of Cardiology [Retired], Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, provides the personal recollections about Donald Ross from Jane Somerville, and thus provides a unique snapshot of cardiac surgical history.

In the United States alone, ∼14,000 children are hospitalised annually with acute heart failure. The science and art of caring for these patients continues to evolve. The International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was held on February 4 and 5, 2015. The 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was funded through the Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program Endowment, a philanthropic collaboration between All Children’s Hospital and the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida (USF). Sponsored by All Children’s Hospital Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program, the International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit assembled leaders in clinical and scientific disciplines related to paediatric heart failure and created a multi-disciplinary “think-tank”. The purpose of this manuscript is to summarise the lessons from the 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute, to describe the “state of the art” of the treatment of paediatric cardiac failure, and to discuss future directions for research in the domain of paediatric cardiac failure.

Agenesis of the venous duct is a rare congenital anomaly resulting in abnormal drainage of the umbilical vein into the foetal venous circulation. The clinical presentation and prognosis is variable, and may depend on the specific drainage pathways of the umbilical vein. We present two foetuses with agenesis of the venous duct, both associated with a postnatal portosystemic shunt, but with markedly different postnatal clinical courses. We also review all previously reported cases to better characterise this foetal disorder and the prognosis.

It is widely recognised that children with congenital heart disease (CHD) are at high risk for neurodevelopmental impairments including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder symptoms. Executive function impairments are one of the most prominent neurodevelopmental features associated with CHD. These deficits can have widespread debilitating repercussions in children’s neurocognitive, behavioural, and psycho-social development. There is a crucial gap in research regarding the efficacy of preventive or treatment strategies for these important cognitive morbidities. Executive functions are complex neurocognitive skills highly amenable to improvement. Evidence-based interventions have shown promising results in other paediatric populations, strongly suggesting that they might also benefit the growing population of children with CHD. In this review, we summarise the available data on executive function impairments in children and adolescents with CHD. We underline the important co-morbidity of executive dysfunction with other cognitive and psychiatric issues in CHD, which raises awareness of the crucial need to prevent or at least mitigate these deficits. Finally, we summarise future avenues for research in terms of interventions that may help reduce executive function impairments in youth with CHD.

Down syndrome is the most common chromosomal abnormality, with an incidence of one case in every 650 live births. It is strongly associated with heart disease, which constitutes the main cause of mortality during the first 2 years of life in this population. Most of the cardiac abnormalities in patients with Down syndrome can be suspected by analysing the surface 12-lead ECG. The purpose of this systematic review was to analyse all available published material on surface ECG and cardiac rhythm and conduction abnormalities in patients with Down syndrome to facilitate the search to the clinical cardiologist and paediatrician.

Sudden cardiac death in the young is a relatively uncommon but marked event usually related to congenital diseases or anomalies. Despite the prevalence of each condition being variable, most common causes include primary myocardial diseases and arrhythmic disorder, frequently with inheritance pattern. Sudden cardiac death is usually preceded by symptoms, thus making personal and family history fundamental for its prevention. Nevertheless, in more than 50% of cases, sudden cardiac death is the first manifestation of the disease. In this review, we describe the different causes of sudden cardiac death, their incidence, and currently used preventive strategies.

Use of correct nomenclature is important in all aspects of medicine. Many of the controversies that have bedeviled paediatric cardiology have devolved from the inappropriate use of words to describe the lesions to be found when the heart is congenitally abnormal. A continuing area of disagreement is the situation currently described by many as representing “heterotaxy”. When used literally, this word means any departure from the normal. Thus, all congenitally malformed hearts represent examples of heterotaxy. By convention, nonetheless, the term is used to describe the arrangement in which the bodily organs, including parts of the heart, are not in their usual or in their mirror-imaged patterns. The arrangements, therefore, represent the presence of the organs on the right and left sides of the body being mirror imaged, in other words isomeric; however, not all the organs are uniformly isomeric. In this review, we show that, when assessed on the basis of the morphology of the atrial appendages, specifically the extent of the pectinate muscles relative to the atrioventricular junctions, isomerism is an unequivocal finding within the heart. Only the atrial appendages, however, are truly isomeric. The potential problem of disharmony between the various systems of organs is resolved simply by accounting specifically for each of the systems. On these bases, we suggest that the isomeric arrangements can now readily be diagnosed in the clinical setting, and differentiated into their right and left isomeric variants. We propose that such distinctions will provide the key for establishing the genetic cues responsible for the formation of the isomeric as opposed to the lateralised arrangements.

Background: Disagreement currently exists regarding the definition of aortic dextroposition. It is suggested that the term be used interchangeably with aortic overriding, along with suggestions that the aortic valve overrides in the normal heart. The dextroposed aorta, however, does not always override the crest of the muscular ventricular septum. It is incorrect to argue that the normal aortic valve overrides. It is the cavity of the right aortic valvar sinus, rather than the valvar orifice, that sits above the muscular septum when the septum itself is intact. Therefore, to circumvent these difficulties, those using the term “dextroposition” find it necessary to distinguish “true” as opposed to “false” categories. The problems arise because “dextroposition” is remarkably ill-suited as an alternative term for aortic valvar overriding. Methods and Results: In this review, combining developmental, morphologic, and clinical data, we show how aortic overriding is best considered on the basis of biventricular connection of the aortic root in the setting of deficient ventricular septation. When analysed in this manner, it becomes an easy matter to distinguish between one-to-one and double outlet ventriculo-arterial connections. Appreciation of these features emphasises the different spatial alignments of interventricular communications as opposed to the plane of deficient ventricular septation. The concept of overriding is applicable not only to biventricular connection of the aortic root, but also the pulmonary and common arterial roots. Conclusions: The diagnostic techniques now available to the paediatric cardiologist illustrate the features of arterial valvar overriding with exquisite accuracy, informing the discussions now required for optimal decision making.