Transforming outcomes for infants, children and young adults with heart disease and heart failure.

Childhood heart disease and heart failure

There are two major types of childhood heart disease:

1. Congenital heart disease where defects often develop before birth. Over 2,400 Australian babies a year are affected, with half needing surgical interventions.
2. Acquired heart disease which is mostly diagnosed after birth and can result from viral infections or medical treatments such as rheumatic fever and chemotherapy.

Both types of heart disease increase a child’s chance of heart failure and the need for transplantation.

With medical and surgical advancements, many patients with childhood heart disease are now surviving into adulthood. However, once heart tissue is damaged it has a very limited capacity for self-repair, and so the fight to prevent the onset of heart failure in these children begins. From the onset of heart failure, patients have around a 50 per cent survival rate within five years of diagnosis.

Significantly, there has been a recent increase in the occurrence of heart failure among survivors of childhood heart disease and this places significant strain on our hospital systems. To address this, Melbourne Children’s Campus surgeons, clinicians and researchers have united to transform outcomes for infants, children and young adults with heart disease and heart failure.

Key Flagship activities

The Heart Flagship program consists of the following key activities:

• Established research pipeline that goes through several steps (biobanking, clinical registries, genomic diagnostics and disease modelling) before it becomes a therapy for patients.
• Stem Cell Medicine program encompassing stem cell medicine through to clinical trials, with strong links to the reNEW program.
• World-class drug and cell therapy research program by our Heart Regeneration group to treat the increasing prevalence of heart failure in children.
• The Australian National Standards of care for Childhood-onset Heart Disease standards describe what excellent, coordinated, patient- and family-centred care looks like for children with CoHD.
• National analysis of disease and economic burden to inform hospital and healthcare planning.
• Strategic partnership with HeartKids, the main not-for-profit organisation supporting patients and families affected by childhood heart disease in Australia.
  
• Our Heart Patient Advocacy Group (PAG) provides a voice for the Childhood Heart Disease (CHD) community on Campus and drives key activities within the Flagship.
  
  

More on our Heart Patient Advocacy Group

Our Flagship members

Steering committee

The leadership team consists of representatives from across:

• Stem Cell Medicine and Clinical Sciences research areas at MCRI
• Departments of Cardiac Surgery, Cardiology and Paediatric Intensive Care at The Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) 

More information

RCH Advanced Heart Failure Programme
This RCH Grand Rounds presents the program for severe heart failure including its history, regulatory structure, circulatory support options, surgical techniques, transplant outcomes, and the multidisciplined research underpinning this program.

HeartKids From the Heart Podcas
Listen to fantastic podcasts by our very own Netty Gaulton (Heart Patient Advocacy Group), MCRI Associate Professor Mirana Ramialison and May Chan and Bambang Kurnia from RCH Cardiac Surgery.

Contact us

For queries about the Heart Flagship please email us:  show email address