Study for the PANCE Cardiology Test. Enhance your knowledge with comprehensive flashcards and multiple-choice questions. Each question comes with hints and detailed explanations. Prepare thoroughly for your exam!

Multiple Choice

Tetralogy of Fallot is categorized as which type of congenital heart disease?

Tetralogy of Fallot is a cyanotic congenital heart disease. Its main feature causing cyanosis is a right-to-left shunt: obstruction of the right ventricular outflow (pulmonary stenosis) plus a ventricular septal defect directs deoxygenated blood from the right ventricle into the left ventricle and the aorta. The overriding aorta receives this mixed blood, so less oxygen reaches the systemic circulation. This chronic desaturation leads to central cyanosis and episodic hypoxemia (tet spells). Because the condition produces systemic hypoxemia, it fits in the cyanotic category, unlike acyanotic lesions that primarily cause left-to-right shunts with preserved systemic oxygenation.

Tetralogy of Fallot is a cyanotic congenital heart disease. Its main feature causing cyanosis is a right-to-left shunt: obstruction of the right ventricular outflow (pulmonary stenosis) plus a ventricular septal defect directs deoxygenated blood from the right ventricle into the left ventricle and the aorta. The overriding aorta receives this mixed blood, so less oxygen reaches the systemic circulation. This chronic desaturation leads to central cyanosis and episodic hypoxemia (tet spells). Because the condition produces systemic hypoxemia, it fits in the cyanotic category, unlike acyanotic lesions that primarily cause left-to-right shunts with preserved systemic oxygenation.