Hospital Mortality, Postoperative Residual Defects and Complications of Patients with Tetralogy of Fallot After Total Correction

Residual intracardiac defects and complications may be seen at a rate of 12-13 percent in patients with tetralogy of Fallot who are operated for intracardiac repair at the carly and Iate postoperative periods. We studied 359 patients with tetralogy of Fallot, and evaluated for hospital mortality, early and Iate postoperative residual intracardiac defects and complications at Pediatric Cardiology Department of Hacettepe University Hospital between January 1984 - December 1988. The age of the patients ranged from 6 months to 21 years (mean 6.5 years). There were 25 early postoperative deaths (6.9 %). We observed that peripheral pulmonic stenosis affected hospital mortality. Early non-fatal complications occurred in 25 percent Bleeding requiring thoracotomy (42 %) and surgically induced arrhythmia (22 %) were frequent complications. During postoperative period. we examined 135 patients at Pediatric Cardiology Department. Among them one patient (0.7 %) had complete heart block, six patients (4.4 %) had aneurysm of right ventricular outflow tract. forty-three patients (3 1.8 %) had residual pulmonic stenosis with significant stenosis in five (12 %). Residual ventricular septal defect was found in 42 patients (31 %). thirty-one of them (23 %) had also pulmonic stenosis. Pulmonary valvular insufficiency was detected in 59 percent by physical examination and 70.8 percent by Doppler echocardiography. In our series, reoperation was performedvin 6 patients (4.4%), one of whom died.