Atrioventricular Septal Defect – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

atrioventricular septal defect in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. A quiet chest
2. Why so quiet
3. The ECG clue
4. Worse than expected
5. Complete or partial
6. Uneven chambers
7. A slow rhythm
8. The valve that lasts
9. A new murmur at seven
10. Planning the operation
11. Another cause of pressure
12. Found later
13. Not ready for repair
14. Found before birth
15. A fast rhythm
16. Does Down syndrome change the outcome
17. Nine months on
18. On the scan

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Nothing, as there is no murmur on examination, High lung resistance hides the shunt at birth, Right axis deviation with tall R in V1, A second defect in the atrial wall, A common valve with defects at both levels, A standard two-ventricle repair is always possible, Sinus bradycardia during sleep, which is normal after surgery, A new ventricular septal defect opening up at the patch, Subaortic narrowing from the elongated outflow, Cardiac catheterisation in every child before repair, A residual defect that was missed at the operation itself, Rheumatic heart disease from an old throat infection, Pulmonary artery banding, A fetal MRI of the brain and spine.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Down syndrome newborn: echo, murmur or not.
• Silent at birth: lung resistance hides the shunt.
• Superior axis in Down syndrome: think AVSD.
• AVSD worse than expected: the common valve is leaking.
• Complete AVSD: one valve, two holes.
• Unbalanced AVSD: may take the single-ventricle road.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all cardiology case decks · pediatric reference values.