Congenital cardiac malformations are usually classified by morphology, but it can be helpful to group them according to their haemodynamics. In this section the basics will be described and will be illustrated with example pathologies. The groupings will be:
Left to right shunts
Right to left shunts
Common mixing situations
Parallel circulations
Left to left shunts
Right to right shunts
Obstructive pathologies
In the illustrative flow diagrams, the pressure (in millimetres of mercury), oxygen saturation (percentage) are in text, and flow rates are in boxes of blobs, each blob being a nominal 1 litre/min/m2 of flow. The illustrations are copied out of the cardiac volume of "A Textbook of Radiology" which I put together with Leon Gerlis. The copyright for it has been released by the Royal College of Radiologists. I have addded some colour to them: being copies they are a bit quaint but I hope you find the concepts useful.
It will be assumed that you are familiar with the earlier section on general haemodynamic principles.