Patients of all ages with congenital heart defects are treated by a collaborative team of specialists 24 hours a day. We offer the whole spectrum of diagnostic and therapeutic proedures for all congenital heart defects, including the most complex. Our department has its own intensive care unit, intermediate care ward and normal ward and a special outpatient department for congenital heart defects.

We not only perform all standard surgical corrections of congenital heart defects but also offer appropriate, individually tailored treatment to patients with highly complex defects. The success of the treatment is measured primarily by the better quality of life of the patients and their ability to be reintegrated into their social surroundings.

A further focus of our department is the imaging and diagnosis of congenital heart defects using special ultrasound methods, magnetic resonance tomography and heart catheter examination. Whereas 15 years ago heart catheterization was a purely diagnostic procedure, it has now become - through many technical developments - a means of interventional treatment that avoids surgery in many patients with non-complex heart defects.

Further clinical and scientific focuses are:

- the diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of secondary pulmonary arterial hypertension in patients with congenital heart defects
- the evaluation of diastolic functional disturbances in chronically ill heart defect patients
- the optimization of neuroprotection during surgery in newborn children
- research into signal transduction during hypothermia in the neuron and myocardial cell in the infant.

Research into the mechanisms of pulmonary and cardiac remodeling processes, which often occur as a consequence of congenital heart defects, is important to advance knowledge of the causes and effects of molecular and cellular changes in the vessel bed and the heart and thus of the long-term course to be expected in congenital heart defects.

Beside the development of methods of heart catheter intervention with echocardiography and MRT, not requiring radiation for imaging, and resynchronization treatment for congenital heart defects, the evolution of hybrid treatments to improve the long-term course in patients with congenital heart defects is a seminal task.

Of the 1200 inpatients and the 3000 outpatients treated each year by our department, almost one third are now adults, which makes our department a specialized center for adult patients with congenital heart defects. These patients represent a special challenge, since most of them have undergone several previous operations and suffer from severe concomitant illnesses. They also represent the patient group that is expected to increase the most in size in the coming years. This is a result of the continuous advances in the treatment of patients with congenital heart defects, which mean that 90% of all children born with a heart defect can now reach adulthood.

We cooperate closely with the Competence Network for Congenital Heart Defects to ensure that knowledge gained in our specialty is effectively transferred into practice to enable constant improvements in our treatment for patients with congenital heart defects.