HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Author home page(s): Woong-Han Kim Permission Requests Google Scholar Articles by Kim, S.-J. Articles by Lee, J.-Y. PubMed Articles by Kim, S.-J. Articles by Lee, J.-Y. Related Collections Congenital - acyanotic Congenital - cyanotic

J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2008;136:108-116
© 2008 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Surgery for Congenital Heart Disease

Outcome of 200 patients after an extracardiac Fontan procedure

^a Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Sejong General Hospital, Sejong Heart Institute, Bucheon, Korea
^b Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Sejong General Hospital, Sejong Heart Institute, Bucheon, Korea
^c Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Children's Hospital, Seoul, Korea

Received for publication September 26, 2007; revisions received December 18, 2007; accepted for publication December 27, 2007.

^_* Address for reprints: Woong-Han Kim, MD, Department of Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery, Clinical Research Institute, Seoul National University, College of Medicine, Seoul National University Children's Hospital, 28 Yongon-Dong, Jongno-Gu, Seoul, 110-744, Korea. (Email: woonghan{at}snu.ac.kr).

Objectives: Despite the known advantages of the extracardiac conduit Fontan procedure, the long-term outcomes related to the longevity of the conduit and anticoagulation therapy have not been determined. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcome of hospital survivors with an extracardiac Fontan circulation.

Methods and Results: Between 1996 and 2006, 200 patients had the extracardiac conduit Fontan operation. The median age at operation was 3.4 years. Most patients (89.5%) underwent a bidirectional cavopulmonary shunt. Fenestration was required in 85 patients. Overall, the 10-year survival was 92.4% ± 2.1%. Multivariate analysis identified severe infection during the early postoperative period and a high pulmonary arterial pressure during the preoperative period as independent risk factors for patient mortality. The Kaplan–Meier estimate for freedom from reoperation was 82.4% ± 4.1% at 10 years. Arrhythmia occurred in 32 patients after the Fontan operation; freedom from arrhythmia was 85.1% ± 4.4% at 10 years. The risk factors for arrhythmia were the heterotaxy syndrome, follow-up duration, and age at Fontan operation. Freedom from thromboembolism at 10 years was 92.9% ± 1.9%. Among all of the patients, 95.2% were classified in New York Heart Association class I.

Conclusions: The results of this study showed that during 10 years of follow-up, the overall survival and the functional status of the survivors after an extracardiac Fontan procedure were satisfactory. We might infer that fenestration provided benefit inasmuch as the high-risk Fontan patients fenestrated had similar outcomes to those not fenestrated, who were presumably low risk. The incidence of late death, reoperation, obstruction of the cavopulmonary pathway, arrhythmias, and thromboembolism was low.