Tetralogy of Fallot and abnormal coronary artery: use of aprosthetic conduit is outdated
Tetralogy of Fallot (ToF) represents 5–7% of all congenital heart
diseases and is the most common form of cyanotic congenital
heart disease. Coronary artery (CA) anomalies occur in 5–12% of
ToF cases [1–7]. Because this anomalous CA (ACA) most frequent
ly crosses the infundibular region, it can lead to technical difficul
ties during the surgical repair and to increased morbidity and
mortality rates. A CA lesion can occur if this abnormal
course was undiagnosed before or during surgery, leading to se
vere myocardial ischaemia and inadequate or imperfect surgical
correction of the right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT)
obstruction [8].
Several surgical repair procedures have been described in the
literature to relieve RVOT obstruction without damaging the
ACA, the most common being insertion of a right ventricle
(RV)-to-pulmonary artery (PA) prosthetic conduit over the ACA
or infundibular resection through a right atriotomy and, when
surgically possible, an infundibular incision either above or below
the ACA, or both [1, 9–17]. An RV-to-PA conduit insertion implies
future reinterventions, leading to significant surgical cumulative
risk because the conduit is likely to require revision.
The twin aims of this retrospective study were to report the
outcomes for ToF repair with associated ACA in our institution
and to evaluate the results of different surgical techniques aimed
at avoiding the use of RV-to-PA prosthetic conduits.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A retrospective monocentric study was conducted in our institu
tion from 2000 to 2016. We reviewed our paediatric cardiac sur
gery database to identify the patients with ToF who underwent
biventricular repair. The Paris V University ethics committee
granted approval for review of health records. The need for indi
vidual consent was waived due to the retrospective nature of the
study.
From 2000 to 2016, 1132 patients with ToF underwent surgery
in our institution. We excluded patients with ToF with pulmonary
atresia and/or atrioventricular (AV) septal defect, patients who
had prior surgical repair in another institution and patients who
could not benefit from biventricular repair. Patients with ToF dis
playing a minor infundibular coronary branch were not included.
On the 943 patients with ToF included in our cohort, 76 (8%)
had an ACA. An ACA was either diagnosed from preoperative
transthoracic echocardiography or discovered at surgery.
CA anatomy is described in Table 1. The main ACA were a left
CA arising from the right CA (n=47, 61.8%), a major infundibular
CA (n=15, 19.7%), a right CA arising from the left CA (n=5,
6.5%), a single CA from 1 sinus (n=5, 6.5%) or a right CA arising
from the left sinus (n=4, 5.2%). The mean follow-up period was
50months (1month–18years)