Eisenmenger’s syndrome anatomy

Associate Editor-In-Chief: Priyamavada Singh, MBBS mailto:psingh@perfuse.org

Assistant Editor-In-Chief: Kristin Feeney, B.S. mailto:kfeeney@perfuse.org

Eisenmenger's syndrome can develop in many types of congenital heart diseases. It has been found that among all the congenital heart defects, ventricular septal defect most frequently develops Eisenmenger's syndrome followed by atrial septal defect and patent ductus arteriosus. The progression of a heart defect to Eisenmenger's syndrome depends on-


 * Size of left to right shunt
 * Severity of pulmonary vascular disease.
 * Type of defect (it develops more frequently in uncorrected ventricular septal defect compared to atrial septal defect)

The left-to-right shunting causes an increase in pulmonary vascular flow. The increased pulmonary resistance in turn causes the development of pulmonary artery hypertension. This leads to reversal of shunt(right-to-left,(Qp:Qs <1)) and development of cyanosis in the patient.