ASE 2025 Annual Meeting Recap – Congenital Heart Disease Highlights

Published: September 09, 2025

The American Society of Echocardiography just celebrated its 50th annual Scientific Sessions in Nashville, Tennessee. The three-day event, which ran from September 5 through September 7, saw echocardiography enthusiasts and multidisciplinary partners from around the world share insights, network, and discuss the exciting innovations revealed over the course of the previous year.

The 2025 ASE Scientific Sessions featured many educational opportunities from learning labs and career development sessions to oral abstracts and poster presentations. Below, we highlighted some of the featured posters presented at the conference that are related to adult congenital heart diseases. For a full look at all the posters presented at the conference, visit the ASE 2025 Scientific Sessions ePoster website.

Stress Echocardiography Findings in Patients with Anomalous Aortic Origin of a Coronary Artery (AAOCA): Insights from the EURO-AAOCA Registry

Description: AAOCA is a rare congenital anomaly associated with ischemic and arrhythmic risk, particularly during exertion. Stress echocardiography (SE) is essential for assessing myocardial perfusion and function in AAOCA, but large-scale data was limited, so this study evaluated SE results in AAOCA patients from the EURO-AAOCA Registry.
Conclusion: SE in AAOCA patients exhibited a low rate of inducible ischemia and arrhythmias. Most patients remained asymptomatic. The findings suggest SE may have limited ability for detecting ischemic risk in the focused population.

Stress Echocardiographic Assessment of Hemodynamics in Adults with Repaired Tetralogy of Fallot: Lack of Diastolic Augmentation May Explain Limited Exercise Performance

Description: This study focused on assessing the feasibility of stress echocardiography in the assessment of systolic and diastolic function in repaired Tetralogy of Fallot. Additionally, the study assessed any correlation between echo parameters and cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET).
Conclusion: The inclusion of spectral and tissue Doppler in STE provided valuable insight. Resting and post-stress augmentation of biventricular systolic function, RV & LV early diastolic and RA function correlated with CPET exercise measures.

Unroofed Coronary Sinus in An Elderly Patients: A Rare Cause of Right Heart Failure

Description: An unroofed coronary sinus is a rare congenital cardiac anomaly in which there is partial (either focal or fenestrated) or complete absence of the roof of the CS, which results in communication between the CS and LA. An 80-year-old patient with a history of Afib, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia presented with dyspnea and exertional fatigue.
Conclusion: URCS may occur alone, but commonly in combination with other congenital malformations such as persistent left SVC. Percutaneous closure may be considered, but surgical closure is the the treatment of choice, and the decision-making process should weigh the risks of closure against further progression of cardiomyopathy in this patient population.

Doppler Flow Velocity Analysis in Myocardial Bridging of the Left Anterior Descending Artery in Patients with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Description: Because data comparing left anterior descending artery (LAD) Doppler flow velocities in patients who have HCM with LAD myocardial bridging are limited. This study strove to compare LAD velocity profiles of patients who have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with myocardial bridging to those who have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy without myocardial bridging.
Conclusion: Myocardial bridging of the LAD is more common in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The LAD diastolic peak velocity may be significantly lower in patients with MB than in those without.

Echocardiographic Findings in Patients with Anomalous Aortic Origin of a Coronary Artery (AAOCA): Insights from the EURO-AAOCA Registry

Description: Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is widely used for initial assessment, but its diagnostic accuracy in AAOCA remains debated. The study focused on evaluating echocardiographic findings and their impact on myocardial function in AAOCA patients.
Conclusion: The study found that echocardiographic findings show preserved left and right ventricular function in AAOCA patients despite coronary anomalies. The low detection rate of AAOCA by echocardiography suggests the need for multimodal imaging in select classes.