Congenital and Acquired-Valvular Heart Diseases

Up to the introduction of heart catheterization in the late 1950s, congenital heart disease was diagnosed by the interpretation of symptoms, heart auscultation, thoracic x-rays, and the electrocardiogram (ECG). In 1967, Burch and DePasquale published a 773-page book, Electrocardiography in the Diagnosis of Congenital Heart Diseases, in which four forms of single ventricle were diagnosed (or supposed) on the basis of ECG features. However, today, the diagnosis of congenital and acquired heart anomalies is made or proven by heart catheterization and angiography, and even more often, by echocardiogram and color Doppler.