Guidelines of the Spanish society of cardiology for the evaluation and management of the most frequent congenital heart diseases

The use of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques is very important to ensur e optimum, effective treatment in patients with heart disease to thereby ob tain an adequate cost-benefit relationship. The aim of establishing guidelines for the evaluation and management is to achieve this relationship, but these guidelines are difficult to establish in pediatric cardiology despite 50 years of experience in this field. At present a large group of patients may benefit from these guidelines due to the improvement in the diagnostic techniques and better treatment result s in congenital heart disease in the newborn. Protocols have been established in some groups and in others in which this is not possible, descriptive analysis and therapeutic schedules have been d etermined.