A meta-analysis of perventricular device closure of doubly committed subarterial ventricular septal defects

To investigate the safety and efficacy of perventricular device closure of doubly committed subarterial ventricular septal defects (dcsVSDs).

PubMed and Scopus were searched for studies in English that focused on perventricular device closure of dcsVSDs and were published up to the end of September 2019. We used a random-effects model to obtain pooled estimates of the success and complication rates.

A total of 9 publications including 459 patients with dcsVSDs were included. The median follow-up duration ranged from 2 months to 5 years, with the mean age of patients ranging from 6.1 months to 4.5 years. The pooled estimate of the overall success rate of device closure in the 9 studies was 0.89 (95% CI: 0.86-0.93, I² = 26.5%, P = 0.208). Further meta-regression analysis indicated no significant correlation between the success rate and the following factors: publication year, sample size, study type, mean age, mean weight, mean VSD size, and ratio of device size/weight. The pooled rate of postoperative aortic regurgitation was 0.045 (95% CI: 0.018-0.071, I² = 50.96%, P = 0.000). The pooled rate of follow-up aortic regurgitation (AR) was 0.001 (95% CI, - 0.003-0.004, I² = 63.00%, P = 0.009.) The pooled estimated rate of severe intraoperative complications was 0.106 (0.073-0.140, I² = 70.7%, P = 0.208). Postoperative and follow-up complications were rare. No occurrence of a complete atrioventricular block was reported up to the last follow-up visit.

Perventricular device closure may be an alternative to conventional surgical repair in selected patients with dcsVSDs. The success rate was stable regarding the publication year and sample size, suggesting a relatively short learning curve and the technique's potential for application.