Neonatal cardiac surgery in the new era: Lessons learned from 1000 consecutive cases

Gabriel Amir*, Georgy Frenkel, Elchanan Bruckheimer, Alexander Lowenthal, Amichay Rotstein, Jacob Katz, Yelena Zeitlin, Ofer Schiller, Einat Birk

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: neonatal cardiac surgery has evolved over the last 50 years with a large percentage of the patients achieving complete physiological repair in the neonatal period. The remaining patients achieve staged palliation with an increasing amount of success. Objectives: To report our experience with 1000 neonatal cardiac surgical procedures performed in the last 10 years. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of surgical outcome in all neonatal patients who underwent cardiac surgery between January 2007 and July 2016 at Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel. Results: A total of 1003 neonates aged < 30 days underwent surgery for congenital heart defects at our center. Neonatal surgery accounted for 22.5% of all cardiac surgeries. Neonatal operative mortality was 7.3%, Operative mortality for individual lesions were: simple aortic coarctation (CoA) (198 patients, 2.5%), CoA with hypoplastic arch (24, 4%), CoA with ventricular septal defect (VSD) (84, 2.3%), transposition of the great arteries (TGA, simple and complex, 185, 6.3%), TGA with VSD (37, 0%), truncus arteriosus (26, 3.8%), interrupted aortic arch (25, 4%), Norwood Sano (71, 19.7%), neonatal tetralogy of Fallot (41, 0%), and shunt (131 patients, 12%). Conclusions: Neonatal surgical capabilities have improved substantially over the last decades. Excellent results can be expected for lesions that can be repaired to create biventricular circulation. Improved results can be attributed in part to the evolution of surgical strategies and assistive technologies, but essential is the collaborative effort of surgeons, cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and intensive care specialists acting as a cohesive team whose performance far exceeds the sum of its individual members’ contributions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)645-648
Number of pages4
JournalIsrael Medical Association Journal
Volume18
Issue number11
StatePublished - Nov 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Cardiac surgery
  • Cardiac team
  • Mortality
  • Neonate

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