[Percutaneous transvascular pulmonary valvuloplasty. Early and late results]

Since the introduction into practice in may 1986 at the Institute of Cardiovascular Diagnostics we performed 45 valvuloplasties until March 1990 in 34 children (6.2 +/- 4.9 years old) and 11 adults (29.5 +/- 9.6 years) with valvular pulmonary stenosis. The invasively obtained pressure gradient at the valve diminished from 83.4 +/- 30.7 mm Hg to 35.7 +/- 19.0 mm Hg. Intraoperative complications in three patients (short term asystole, severe bradycardia, increase of right ventricular pressure to 300 mm Hg after valvuloplasty) were controlled, but demanded the end of the intervention. No significant insufficiency of pulmonary valves after valvuloplasty was seen. 18 patients were clinically investigated 14.6 +/- 9.4 months after intervention. The late results for these patients proved the method as a long term curing treatment. According to our present results pulmonary valvuloplasty is the alternative method for valve surgery especially in critical pulmonary valve stenosis in newborns.