Tetralogy of Fallot |Biomedgrid

Tetralogy of Fallot was first discovered in 1673, when Nils Stensen documented the earliest account of the cardiac malformation that we now know as Tetralogy of Fallot (ToF) on a stillborn infant. In 1777, Eduard Sandifort described a “blue boy” who experienced “sinking spells”, saying it was “a very rare disease of the heart”; the boy's anatomical findings align with those of Tetralogy Fallot. About seven years later, William Hunter tracked the abnormal growth pattern and cyanotic spells of a young boy, noting that he was remarkably thin and would experience fits where he fell down and came out sobbing and fatigued. In analyzing an autopsy with similar findings to this boy, Hunter commented on how clear it was that only a very small quantity of blood ever passed through the lungs. In the 1850s, Peacock was the first to note a cardiac murmur of pulmonary stenosis, another common characteristic of ToF, furthering the research on the topic. In 1888, French physician Étienne-Louis Arthur Fallot published a revolutionary description of the disease that established and outlined the four major defects in the disease. Thirty-six years later, in 1924, Maude Abbott coined the name “Tetralogy of Fallot” after the four defects and the man who linked them together [1].