BackgroundAs patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) are living longer, understanding the comorbidities they develop as they age is increasingly important. However, there are no published population‐based estimates of the comorbidity burden among the US adult patients with CHD.Methods and ResultsUsing the IBM MarketScan commercial claims database from 2010 to 2016, we identified adults aged ≥18 years with CHD and 2 full years of continuous enrollment. These were frequency matched with adults without CHD within categories jointly defined by age, sex, and dates of enrollment in the database. A total of 40 127 patients with CHD met the inclusion criteria (mean [SD] age, 36.8 [14.6] years; and 48.2% were women). Adults with CHD were nearly twice as likely to have any comorbidity than those without CHD (P<0.001). After adjusting for covariates, patients with CHD had a higher prevalence risk ratio for “previously recognized to be common in CHD” (risk ratio, 9.41; 95% CI, 7.99–11.1), “other cardiovascular” (risk ratio, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.66–1.80), and “noncardiovascular” (risk ratio, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.41–1.52) comorbidities. After adjusting for covariates and considering interaction with age, patients with severe CHD had higher risks of previously recognized to be common in CHD and lower risks of other cardiovascular comorbidities than age‐stratified patients with nonsevere CHD. For noncardiovascular comorbidities, the risk was higher among patients with severe than nonsevere CHD before, but not after, the age of 40 years.ConclusionsOur data underscore the unique clinical needs of adults with CHD compared with their peers. Clinicians caring for CHD may want to use a multidisciplinary approach, including building close collaborations with internists and specialists, to help provide appropriate care for the highly prevalent noncardiovascular comorbidities.

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Sarcoidosis is a multisystem, granulomatous disease of unknown etiology often seen in young adults, with cardiac involvement in more than one-quarter of sarcoid patients. The clinical presentation of cardiac sarcoid depends upon the location and extent of myocardium involved. Although cardiac sarcoid may produce asymmetrical septal hypertrophy, it is most commonly considered in the differential diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy. The hypertrophic stage of cardiac sarcoid is rarely seen. We describe a case of cardiac sarcoid in a young patient wherein a distinctive appearance of the cardiac sarcoid spectrum from "hypertrophic" stage to thinned/scarred stage, masquerading as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy followed by dilated cardiomyopathy, is demonstrated.

BackgroundHeart failure (HF) admissions in adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) are becoming more common. We compared in‐hospital and readmission events among adults with and without CHD admitted for HF.Methods and ResultsWe identified all admissions with the primary diagnosis of HF among adults in the California State Inpatient Database between January 1, 2005 and January 1, 2012. International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes identified the type of CHD lesion, comorbidities, and in‐hospital and 30‐day readmissions events. Adjusted odds ratio (AOR, 95% CI) was calculated after adjusting for admission year, age, sex, race, household income, primary payor, and Charlson comorbidity index. Of 203 759 patients admitted for HF, 539 had CHD other than atrial septal defect. Compared with patients admitted for HF without CHD, those with CHD were younger, more often male, and had fewer comorbidities as determined by Charlson comorbidity index. On multivariate analysis, CHD patients admitted for HF had higher odds of length of stay ≥7 days (AOR 2.5 [95% CI 2.0–3.1]), incident arrhythmias (AOR 2.8 [95% CI 1.7–4.5]), and in‐hospital mortality (AOR 1.9 [95% CI 1.1–3.1]). Also, CHD patients had lower odds of readmission for HF (AOR 0.6 [95% CI 0.3–0.9]), but similar odds of other 30‐day readmission events. Complex CHD patients had higher odds of length of stay ≥7 days (AOR 1.9 [95% CI 1.1–3.3]) than patients with noncomplex CHD lesions, but similar odds of all other clinical outcomes.ConclusionsAmong patients admitted with the primary diagnosis of HF in California, adults with CHD have substantially higher odds of longer length of stay, incident arrhythmias, and in‐hospital mortality compared with non‐CHD patients. These results suggest a need for HF risk stratification strategies and management protocols specific for patients with CHD.

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