Half a Century's Experience With the Superior Cavopulmonary (Classic Glenn) Shunt

Five decades after its introduction, the Glenn shunt remains an integral step for patients undergoing single-ventricle palliation. We performed a longitudinal follow-up of the original cohort of patients who underwent Glenn shunt.

We performed a retrospective study of the original cohort of patients who underwent Glenn shunt at Yale between 1958 and 1988. Electronic medical records and chart review up to current era were used to collect data.

Ninety-one patients underwent a Glenn shunt at an average age of 6.6 ± 2.5 years, of which 89 were classic Glenn shunts. Median overall survival was 43 years (range, 2 to 56; 95% confidence interval [CI], 39.5 to 46.5) while median survival from the Glenn shunt was 31.4 years (range, 0 to 45; 95% CI, 23.9 to 38.9). Forty-six patients died, 7 in the early postoperative period and 39 late deaths. Twenty-six patients were lost to follow-up. Nineteen patients remain alive with active clinical follow-up, 6 of whom still live with their classic Glenn shunt without conversion to bidirectional Glenn. Twenty-six patients (31%) developed pulmonary arteriovenous fistula with 11 patients (42%) requiring coil embolization. No patient developed thrombosis of the Glenn shunt. There were a total of 28 patients who developed arrhythmias, mostly in the tricuspid atresia group (n = 16), with the majority being atrial tachyarrhythmias (48%). Sixteen patients required permanent pacemaker placement for sinus node dysfunction.

The Glenn shunt continues to provide excellent staged palliation in single-ventricle patients and a bridge to two-ventricle repair. Arrhythmias and pulmonary arteriovenous fistulas were common among single-ventricle cohort. Quality-of-life evaluation of the surviving patients would be an important outcome measure for future investigation.