[The follow-up of transposition of the great arteries corrected by Senning's technic]

The incidence of late complications after a physiological correction of the patients with transposition of the great arteries (D-TGA) is very significant, due to the alternative operation of the arterial switch.

We studied 125 patients with D-TGA, treated with Senning surgical correction between december of 1978 and november of 1990. Surgery was performed at a mean age of 11.7 months (from 7 days to 11.2 years), and the postoperative mean follow-up was 7.3 years (from 1.4 to 14.3 years). We analyzed their evolutive clinical condition, ECG, Holter and echocardiogram-Doppler. Four groups were defined: A) Simple, 48.8%. B) Associated with ventricular septal defect, 22.4%. C) With pulmonary stenosis, 15.2%. D) Both anomalies, 13.6%.

Sixteen children died (12.8%), 11 of them on the postoperative period. The remaining 5 patients died, at a mean time of 34.3 months after surgery, because they were in cardiac failure. All of patients had enlargement of right ventricle and tricuspid regurgitation was observed in 39 children. There were 3 reoperations. Atrioventricular block was observed in 5.7% of the patients, 33.3% were not in sinus rhythm, 6.6% had atrial flutter-fibrillation, sinus node dysfunction was observed in 24.7%, and five permanent pacemakers were implanted (4.7%).

The later mortality is not high, and the clinical outcome is good, but the frequent rhythm disturbances and enlargement of the right ventricle could let us conclude the hypothesis that anatomical correction is an optimal alternative procedure.