Extended follow-up after atrial repair for transposition of the great arteries: a younger age at surgery improves late survival.
BACKGROUND
Surgical treatment for transposition of the great arteries (TGA) usually involves anatomic repair, although atrial repair is used in cases with special coronary artery patterns.


METHODS
Records of all 239 patients surviving at least 30 days after atrial correction of TGA between 1962 and 1987 at the University Hospital in Zurich were reviewed. The mean length of follow-up time was 13.7 years (median 14.9 years; range from 0.05 to 30.1 years). The average age at surgery was 45.7 months (range from 7 days to 24.4 years). One hundred twenty-one patients had a simple TGA, whereas the remaining 118 had a complex TGA.


RESULTS
The surviving patients were in NYHA class I at time of follow-up. The most common reasons for death were systemic right ventricular dysfunction and sudden rhythm disturbances. There was a major risk for late cardiac event in patients over 3 years old at operation (p = 0.02) and also in patients with complex TGA (p = 0.03). However, date of surgery, previous surgery, or the postoperative requirement for a pacemaker did not greatly affect late cardiac mortality.


CONCLUSIONS
Although the procedure of choice for TGA is the arterial switch operation, the promising findings of the current long-term study, which reports the longest follow-up to date, indicate that the atrial switch operation is a good alternative procedure for the rare cases where the use of arterial switch procedures is limited.
Genoni
M
M
Division of Cardiac Surgery, University Zurich, Switzerland.
Vogt
P
P
von Segesser
L
L
Seifert
B
B
Arbenz
U
U
Jenni
R
R
Turina
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D006348:Cardiac Surgical Procedures; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006325:Heart Atria / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014188:Transposition of Great Vessels / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery*