[Surgery in newborns and infants with cyanotic cardiac malformations: indication and technique of emergency operations and urgent early surgical interventions (author's transl)]

Abstract

Between April 1974 and September 1977, 368 infants underwent surgery at the German Heart Center. 287 were less than 1 year of age, and 81 were between the ages of one and two years. In 90 patients (= 24.4%) surgery was necessary because of cyanotic lesions. Within this group corrective procedures were performed in 36 infants during the first year of life, and in 33 during the second year of life, while palliative measures were carried out in these age groups in 15 and 6 infants, respectively. Urgent corrective surgery is indicated as a life-saving measure in neonates with total anomalous pulmonary venous connection (TAPVC) since this lesion is not amenable to either medical nor palliative interventions. Of 10 neonates and young infants who underwent corrective surgery for TAPVC, 3 died during the early post-operative period and 1 subsequently. Balloon atrial septostomy palliatively employed for transposition of the great arteries (TGA) may render only temporary improvement in the clinical status of young infants. In these infants, more favourable results can be achieved through early, functionally-corrective surgery (Mustard-Brom procedure). In 7 infants who underwent correction of TGA during the first year of life there was 1 post-operative death. There was no post-operative mortality in 18 infants whose age at the time of operation was between 1 and 2 years. In the presence of TGA combined with ventricular septal defect there were 3 deaths in 8 infants operated on during the first year of life and none in the 3 who underwent surgery during the second year of life. In the same age groups, early correction of tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) was performed in 11 infants (with 2 deaths) and in 10 infants (with one death), respectively. Thus, in the absence of preclusive, complex anomalies, early surgical correction of congenital cyanotic lesions in young infants consistently yields results superior to that of palliation or two-stage procedures.