Pulmonary functions before and after pediatric cardiac surgery

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Cardiology
• Pulmonary Medicine
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Infants with congenital heart diseases and pulmonary overflow often experience impaired lung function.
• Assessing pulmonary function and its correlation with cardiac parameters is crucial for managing these patients.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate pulmonary function changes in infants before and after cardiac surgery for congenital heart diseases.
• To identify echocardiographic parameters that best correlate with lung mechanics in this population.

Main Methods:

• 30 infants with left-to-right shunt congenital acyanotic heart diseases underwent echocardiography and infant pulmonary function tests (IPFTs) preoperatively and 6 months postoperatively.
• IPFTs included tidal volume, respiratory rate, respiratory system compliance (Crs), respiratory system resistance, functional residual capacity (FRC), and airway resistance, measured via baby body plethysmography.
• Correlation analysis was performed between echocardiographic parameters and IPFT results.

Main Results:

• All measured IPFT parameters showed significant improvement 6 months after surgery (p < 0.0001).
• Systolic pulmonary artery pressure negatively correlated with Crs (r = -0.493, p = 0.006) and positively with FRC (r = 0.450, p = 0.013).
• Pulmonary artery size correlated positively with effective resistance (r = 0.416, p = 0.022) and specific effective resistance (r = 0.604, p = 0.0001), and negatively with Crs (r = -0.398, p = 0.029).

Conclusions:

• Surgical correction of congenital heart diseases with left-to-right shunts positively impacts infant lung compliance, airway resistance, and FRC.
• Noninvasive echocardiographic parameters, including pulmonary artery pressure and size, are closely related to pulmonary function test indexes in these infants.