Cologne - Jasmine Kraemer was 20 when she found out she had a congenital heart defect.

While taking a test as a university student, she suddenly became ill. The diagnosis of a congenital heart defect came after a thorough health check at a hospital. Specifically, the left and right chambers of the social pedagogy student's heart are inverted.

Although such congenital heart defects are found earlier in most patients, all of them have something in common: their chances of leading a largely normal life increase from year to year thanks to modern medicine.

Congenital heart defects are increasingly turning into a focus for doctors in Germany. According to Germany's society for cardiology in Dusseldorf, 180,000 adults in Germany have a congenital heart defect. In 10 years that number is expected to grow to 225,000.

The society's statistics show that from 1950 to 1959 only every tenth of 15,000 children born with serious heart defects, reached the 18th year of life. By contrast the estimated 12,000 patients born with a serious heart defect from 1990 to 1999, have a survival rate of 70 per cent or 8,500 of the total.

The discovery of a congenital heart defect when the patient is already well into childhood or even a young adult like Kraemer is rare. The defects are normally detected by ultrasound during pregnancy.

"If something is discovered during a routine examination, the expectant mother is sent to a specialist," Martin Schneider, head of children's cardiology at the German children's heart centre St. Augustin near Bonn.

In the past, it was more common for heart defect in newborns to go unnoticed such as a hole between the two atria or upper chambers of the heart as it causes no difference in pressure and no murmur.

"In this circumstance such a defect can go undetected for the entire life of the patient," said Schneider.

Kraemer was lucky because her defect was detected and treated. Over time her heart grew weaker, causing dysrhythmia. When she was 32 her cardiologist referred her to the children's heart centre in St. Augustin where she received a pacemaker.

"I had to spend a week in the hospital. But just one month after the surgery, I noticed no signs of having had an operation," said Kraemer, who is now 35.

"Every night my heart data is transmitted automatically to a data centre. If there is a change, I receive a call from the clinic."

So far, heart defect patients largely have remained in the care of their paediatric cardiologists. Increasingly, however, cardiologists are specializing in the treatment of heart defects in newborns. Germany's society for cardiology believes that this will mean that recently defined educational requirements for the speciality soon will bear fruit, filling the void in the care of newborns with congenital heart defects. Thus far, 30 doctors - five internists and 25 paediatric cardiologists - have received the certificates in the area.

Kraemer was not bothered about being treated in a paediatric hospital. She says when she looked around at the little girls and boys there, she just thought about how well she is really doing.