Sachdeva R, Valente AM, Armstrong AK, Cook SC, Han BK, Lopez L, Lui GK, Pickard SS, Powell AJ, Bhave NM, Sachdeva R, Valente AM, Pickard SS, Baffa JM, Banka P, Cohen SB, Glickstein JS, Kanter JP, Kanter RJ, Kim YY, Kipps AK, Latson LA, Lin JP, Parra DA, Rodriguez FH 3rd, Saarel EV, Srivastava S, Stephenson EA, Stout KK, Zaidi AN, Gluckman TJ, Aggarwal NR, Bhave NM, Dehmer GJ, Gilbert ON, Kumbhani DJ, Price AL, Winchester DE, Gulati M, Dehmer GJ, Doherty JU, Bhave NM, Daugherty SL, Dean LS, Desai MY, Gillam LD, Mehrotra P, Sachdeva R, and Winchester DE
The American College of Cardiology (ACC) collaborated with the American Heart Association, American Society of Echocardiography, Heart Rhythm Society, International Society for Adult Congenital Heart Disease, Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, and the Society of Pediatric Echocardiography to develop Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) for multimodality imaging during the follow-up care of patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). This is the first AUC to address cardiac imaging in adult and pediatric patients with established CHD. A number of common patient scenarios (also termed "indications") and associated assumptions and definitions were developed using guidelines, clinical trial data, and expert opinion in the field of CHD. 1 The indications relate primarily to evaluation before and after cardiac surgery or catheter-based intervention, and they address routine surveillance as well as evaluation of new-onset signs or symptoms. The writing group developed 324 clinical indications, which they separated into 19 tables according to the type of cardiac lesion. Noninvasive cardiac imaging modalities that could potentially be used for these indications were incorporated into the tables, resulting in a total of 1,035 unique scenarios. These scenarios were presented to a separate, independent panel for rating, with each being scored on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 to 3 categorized as "Rarely Appropriate," 4 to 6 as "May Be Appropriate," and 7 to 9 as "Appropriate." Forty-four percent of the scenarios were rated as Appropriate, 39% as May Be Appropriate, and 17% as Rarely Appropriate. This AUC document will provide guidance to clinicians in the care of patients with established CHD by identifying the reasonable imaging modality options available for evaluation and surveillance of such patients. It will also serve as an educational and quality improvement tool to identify patterns of care and reduce the number of Rarely Appropriate tests in clinical practice., (Copyright © 2020 The American College of Cardiology Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)