title: Cardiac surgery in Africa: a thirty-five year experience on open heart surgery in Cote d'Ivoire.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Few centers for open heart surgery (OHS) are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Lack of OHS results is also noted. By reporting our African experience on OHS, the aim of this study was to fill the gap.
  
  
  METHODS
  It is a retrospective study on 2,612 patients who were subject to an OHS between 1978 and 2013. Data were collected from demographical, clinical, investigative studies, surgical and outcomes parameters.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 1,475 cases of rheumatic heart diseases (RHD), 126 endomyocardial fibrosis (EMF), 741 congenital heart diseases (CHDs) and 270 various affections. Related to rheumatic valvular surgery we enumerated 1,175 monovalvular (mitral n=778, aortic n=336, tricuspid n=61); 280 bivalvular (mitral + aortic n=150, mitral + tricuspid n=130) and 20 trivalvular. For RHD, average age was 26±10.1 years (4-69 years) and 60% of our patients presented a functional class III or IV according to New York Heart Association (NYHA) classification. A total of 1,481 valvular replacements (bioprostheses n=489, mechanical prostheses n=992) and 445 valvular repair were carried out with a global and late mortality surgery respectively at 7% and 8%. One hundred and twenty-six [126] cases of EMF with right sided form 39, left sided form 40, and bilateral form 47 were colligated. Average age was 12±0.6 years (2-15 years). All patients with EMF underwent surgery; an endocardectomy in all patients combined with valvular reconstruction (n=36) or valvular replacement (n=90) was carried out with a hospital mortality at 16% (n=20). Concerning CHD, the most frequent were ventricular septal defect (VSD) (n=240), atrial septal defect (ASD) (n=200), partial atrio-ventricular sepal defect (n=30) and tetralogy of Fallot (T4F) (n=220), a total correction was performed for those CHD with an early mortality at 6.4% (n=44).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  OHS in Cote d'Ivoire was successfully performed in most of our patients, the spectrum of acquired valvular heart diseases and CHDs in our country is similar to others in Sub-Saharan Africa.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Bouake Teaching Hospital, Bouake, Côte d'Ivoire;; Institute of Cardiology of Abidjan, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
authors.forename: Koffi Herve
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Yangni-Angate
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Bouake Teaching Hospital, Bouake, Côte d'Ivoire;; Institute of Cardiology of Abidjan, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meneas
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Bouake Teaching Hospital, Bouake, Côte d'Ivoire;; Institute of Cardiology of Abidjan, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
authors.forename: Florent
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Diby
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Bouake Teaching Hospital, Bouake, Côte d'Ivoire.
authors.forename: Manga
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Diomande
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Bouake Teaching Hospital, Bouake, Côte d'Ivoire;; Institute of Cardiology of Abidjan, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
authors.forename: Anicet
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Adoubi
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, Institute of Cardiology of Abidjan, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tanauh
keywords: Africa; Cardiac surgery; congenital heart diseases (CHDs); endomyocardial fibrosis (EMF); rheumatic