Congenital malformation of the ventral wall with partial or total evisceration of the heart outside the thoracic cavity and through the defect in the ventral wall.
Comment:
See Moss and Adams 'Heart Disease in Infants, Children and Adolescents' p1168. Ectopia cordis has a very poor prognosis. Ectopia cordis is generally divided into five types: cervical, cervicothoracic, thoracic, abdominal, and thoracicoabdominal. Ectopia cordis is rare (5-8 per million live births), but the two most common forms are thoracic (59%) and thoracicoabdominal (38%).