Surgical correction of congenital heart defects in adult

성인 선천성 심장기형의 외과적 치료

The records of 248 patients over 16 years of age who had undergone a surgical correction of a congenital cardiovascular malformation during the period of 10 years from August, 1978 to July, 1988 were reviewed. During this period, the incidence of congenital cardiovascular malformation in adult was 18.2% of 1376 total heart disease operated on and 25.5% of 986 congenital heart defects. Among them, there were 200 patients in acyanotic group and 48 patients in cyanotic group. Male versus female ratio was 1:1.28. The oldest patient was 59 years old female who had atrial septal defect. The mean age was 24.4 years old. The distribution of the lesions showed a large preponderance of atrial septal defects [37.19o] followed in frequency by ventricular septal defects [918.1%], patent ductus arteriosus [17.3%], tetralogy of Fallot [16.1%], and a variety of other complex malformations[3.2%]. In the pediatric age group, relative frequency was different from that of this adult group, showing ventricular septal defects, tetralogy of Fallot, patent ductus arteriosus and atrial septal defects in order of incidence. The hospital mortality and late mortality were 6.0% and 1.7% respectively. The causes of hospital death were low cardiac output in 10 patients, arrhythmia in 2, air embolism in 1, sepsis in 1 and respiratory failure in l. Clinical improvement upto NYHA functional class I or II postoperatively has been achieved and sustained in all patients following repair except the patients of late death and receiving reoperation. This result confirms that congenital heart defects in the adults can be corrected with a good outcome and an aggressive operative approach seems justified.