by Nicole Evans M.D.

Created on: August 09, 2009

There are some mnemonics that are so useful for the average student that they are literally passed down from year to year like a precious secret. The mnemonic to memorize cyanotic congenital heart defects happens to be one of those secrets at my medical school.

The menomonic used to memorize cyanotic congenital heart defects is super easy because it involves assigning the 5 most common types of congenital defects to your fingers. Once you do it, it's hard to forget. I'll explain below.

First, for those who are reading this but are not familiar with congenital heart defects, here's a brief description of cyanotic and acyanotic congenital heart defects. As a bonus I'll throw in a couple hints on easy ways to remember acyanotic congenital defects as well. For a more detailed discussion of the topic see the Overview of Congenital Heart Defects.

Acyanotic congenital heart defects:

Some acyanotic heart defects create a shunt, while others create an obstruction. Heart defects that create an obstruction have words in their name that reflect this. These include "stenosis" of the aortic valve, "stenosis" of the pulmonic valve and "coarctation" of the aorta.

Acyanotic congenital heart defects that create a shunt are also the most common heart defects. These are the big three that most people have heard of. Conveniently, they are all also abbreviated with three letters: ASD, PDA, and VSD. That is: atrial septal defect (ASD), patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) and ventricular septal defect (VSD).

Cyanotic congenital heart defects:

Cyanotic heart defects are less common than the acyanotic defects, but there are more of them. They can affect pulmonary blood flow and ventricular size, and they cause more complications than acyanotic defects (besides a blue baby or a child who squats all the time).

The most common cyanotic heart defects are conveniently known as the "5 T's". These are worth knowing and won't take up much brain space if you just let your hand help you with the memorization. Here is what I mean by that.

Best way to memorize the 5 most common types of cyanotic congenital heart defects:

The 5 T's are:

Truncus arteriosus

Transposition of the great arteries

Tricuspid atresia

Tetralogy of Fallot

Totally anomalous pulmonary venous return.

Now hold up your hand (let's use our right hand). You are basically going to count to 5 on your fingers so start with the thumb.

1. Truncus Arteriosus: Hold out your

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