Serum lactate as mortality and morbidity marker in infants after Jatene's operation

To assess the morbidity and mortality after Jatene's operation using lactate as the main marker.

We performed a historical cohort with infants admitted in a pediatric intensive care unit during 1995 to 2005 who underwent this surgery. We assessed the preoperative, immediate (IPD), third hour (3h), six hour (6h) and first day (POD1) serum lactate as well as other factors such as sepsis, increased bleeding, low cardiac output syndrome, renal insufficiency, pulmonary hypertension, cardiac arrythmias, chylothorax, myocardial ischemia, seizures, presence of other complication, and also information about length of PICU stay and death.

The mean age of 76 patients was 14.59± 19.09 days, birth weight 3.128± 0.48 kg Forty-four patients had the diagnosis of simple transposition of great arteries. The circulatory bypass time was 143.78± 28.77 minutes and aortic clamping time of 87.68± 22.3 minutes and LOS of 20.28 ± 15.62 days. Twenty four (31.58%) died during hospital stay. Lactate increased in IPD, returning to baseline at 24 hours. Patients who died raised and maintained IPD lactate higher. The 3h lactate best discriminated mortality with area under the curve of 0.68 (CI 0.54 to 0.83) P = 0.035. However, considering a cutoff point for lactate greater or equal to 5.8 mmol/dl in the 3-h PO, we obtained only 67% sensitivity and specificity of 64% for mortality. There is positive correlation between number of complications and lactate. The low cardiac output syndrome with an odds ratio (OR) of 7.67 (2.38-24), increased bleeding with OR 2.91 (1.07-7.94) and respiratory complication with OR 1.67 (1.35-2.05) are risk factors when combined.

After Jatene's operation, morbidity and mortality can be assessed with the serum lactate levels, suggesting increased values in the third hour is suggestive of a worse prognosis.