Conditions & Treatments

Understanding your / your child’s heart condition can be challenging because most people have little knowledge of what the heart does or what can go wrong.

Over the next few pages, newly updated for 2022, we hope to explain each main single ventricle heart condition in turn and then to explain the sorts of treatment that may be offered. If at any time you would like to chat through the information you have been given, do not hesitate in giving the LHM team a ring on 0121 455 8982.

All of this information is available in PDF format, click here to browse our publications.

The normal heart

Information to help you understand the normal flow of blood through the heart

Click here for a description of how the normal heart works

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) is a congenital heart condition (a problem that a baby is born with).

Click here for a description of the heart condition and possible treatments offered.

Tricuspid Atresia

Tricuspid Atresia (TA) is a congenital heart condition (a problem that a baby is born with).

Click here for a description of the heart condition and possible treatments offered.

Pulmonary Atresia with intact ventricular septum

Pulmonary Atresia (PA) with intact ventricular septum is a congenital heart condition (a problem that a baby is born with).

Click here for a description of the heart condition and possible treatments offered.

Double Inlet Left Ventricle

Double Inlet Left Ventricle (DILV) is a congenital heart condition (a problem that a baby is born with).

Click here for a description of the heart condition and possible treatments offered.

Double Outlet Right Ventricle

Double Outlet Right Ventricle (DORV) is a congenital heart condition (a problem that a baby is born with).

Click here for a description of the heart condition and possible treatments offered.

Hypoplastic Right Heart

Some doctors give their patients the diagnosis of Hypoplastic Right Heart. This is a collection of problems on the right side of the heart.

Click here for more information.

Other conditions where a child may need to go down the single ventricle treatment pathway

There are a number of congenital (something a baby is born with) heart conditions where the treatment plan is not always clear at the first diagnosis. Some children are born with a heart on the borderline between having two pumps or just one. If possible, cardiac doctors will plan to create or maintain a two-pump heart: this may mean creating a wall within the heart or creating a tube to take blood from one pump to the lungs.

It may be that surgeons will do a small amount of surgery to keep the child safe, giving them an ability to grow, and then wait to see if the heart shows it can support a two-pump circulation.

In some cases, as the child grows, it becomes clear that a two- pump heart is not possible and doctors will choose to follow the Fontan treatment path.

Conditions which might be borderline are described below.

• Ebstein’s Anomaly

• One and a half ventricles

• Complex Atrial Ventricular Septal Defect (AVSD)

Ongoing post Fontan investigations and treatments.

• Fontan Associated Liver Disease (FALD)

• Protein-Losing Enteropathy (PLE)

Transplant Assessment

Doctors are now able to offer surgery, medical interventions, and medication, which supports the half a heart to give adults a good, though not perfect, circulation. When one pump is doing the job of two, the heart will gradually tire, leading to increasing heart failure and the need for new treatment options. Transplantation, with all its challenges, is one of these options.

This information sheet is intended to describe what the process of being assessed for a transplant involves.

• Transplant Assessment