[Pulmonary atresia with an intact interventricular septum]

We report this centre's experience of the treatment and follow up of pulmonary atresia with an intact septum. 35 infants were seen during the neonatal period. Opening via catheterisation was attempted in 21 patients with initial success in 10, and 11 failures leading to urgent surgery (surgical opening, n=9) and isolated Blalock-Taussig anastomosis (n=2). Fourteen other patients underwent immediate surgery: surgical opening, n=3, and Blalock alone, n=11. Four patients died in the neonatal period: 1 after successful opening via catheterisation, 3 others after Blalock anastomosis. Five others with a Blalock anastomosis died suddenly later. By the end of follow up, 16 patients had undergone biventricular type repair, of which 7 required additional procedures. 10 others had undergone cavo-pulmonary type repair, including 4 infants in whom the initial strategy of biventricular repair had failed. The only predictive factors at birth for subsequent progression to biventricular type repair were: larger tricuspid diameter at echography (10.9 +/- 2.25 mm versus 6.34 +/- 1.74 mm, p = 0.0007) or at angiography (10.07 +/- 2.09 mm versus 8.04 +/- 2.42 mm, p = 0.039), and the right ventricular morphology (p = 0.0011) with more tripartite ventricles, and less bipartite or even unipartite ones in the biventricular group.