Center for Congenital Heart Disease Overview

Mayo Clinic Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery

Pediatric heart specialists at Mayo Clinic Children's Center have extensive experience treating babies, children and teens with congenital heart disease. Learn more about Mayo Clinic's approach to care.

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Hope and healing for little hearts.

Joseph Dearani, M.D., Cardiovascular Surgery, Mayo Clinic: Congenital heart disease is common. Approximately one in a 100 live births have a congenital heart defect, so it's really one of the most common congenital birth defects. And the good news for parents and families is that the majority of defects can be fixed, oftentimes with one procedure alone and they can go on and live a very productive, normal or near-normal quality of life.

Jonathan Johnson, M.D., Pediatric Cardiology, Mayo Clinic: When my kids are seeing a team here at Mayo, I know that they're going to get the best care. I know that they're going to get the best expertise and I know they're going to be able to find that expert that they need to figure out what's going on and how best to treat them.

Dr. Dearani: If I look at my own practice, I do a lot of minimally invasive cardiac surgery. And I've gotten to do that because I learned it all in the adult population, which is where it started. So doing robotic heart surgery in teenagers is something that you can't get in a children's hospital because they don't have the technology available to them where we could do that here.

Dr. Johnson: Mayo Clinic pediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery excels at the rare, complex, unique patients where you need a multi-disciplinary approach from different specialists, different surgeons, all looking at, at the child and trying to figure out what the what's the best path forward for the child. And that's what we're known for our worldwide.

Dr. Dearani:The faculty and all of the allied health, in terms of nursing staff in the ICU and respiratory therapy and all of the other important members of the medical team, have this enormous history of experience. So that's what you get when you when you come to Mayo Clinic. You have clinicians and health care staff that are just really experienced taking care of these defects and that's probably one of the strongest reasons to consider Mayo Clinic.

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Children and adults with congenital heart disease need complex, multifaceted care for continued survival and quality of life. Mayo Clinic doctors have extensive experience in treating people with congenital heart disease. Mayo Clinic doctors have been treating all types of congenital heart defects in children and congenital heart disease in adults since the institution started and have been operating on people with complex congenital heart disease for more than 60 years. Doctors use the most modern technology and treatment options, including minimally invasive surgical and catheter-based therapies, to provide the best care possible for you or your child.

At the Center for Congenital Heart Disease, doctors trained in heart conditions and cardiac imaging (cardiologists), heart surgery (cardiac surgeons), anesthesia (anesthesiologists), imaging (radiologists), obstetrics and gynecology, and other areas work together to diagnosis and treat people with congenital heart disease. The staff treats adults with congenital heart disease at Mayo Clinic's campuses in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota. Doctors trained in treating children with heart conditions (pediatric cardiologists) evaluate and treat children with congenital heart defects at Mayo Clinic's campus in Minnesota.

Your health care team talks with you about your heart anatomy, your future health, and your risk of heart conditions. And depending on your condition and situation, they may also talk with you about exercise, employability, insurance and pregnancy.

Research

Doctors actively research genetics and new treatments for congenital heart diseases. Learn more about research in the Cardiovascular Research Center.

Appointments

You may be referred by your primary doctor, or you may make an appointment without a referral.

Jan. 14, 2023