Influence of Surgical Techniques Used in Complete Repair of Tetralogy of Fallot on Length of Hospital Stay

Abstract

Background and Objective:  Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) is the most common cyanotic congenital heart disease in children. Intracardiac correction was pioneered by Walton Lillehei in 1954 and has since then gone through major developments of surgical techniques used in complete repair of tetralogy of fallot. We did this study to identify the effect of these surgical factors on Length of Hospital Stay in patients undergoing complete repair for tetralogy of Fallot.

Materials and Methods: This is a prospective study conducted in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (PCICU) at University Children's Hospital. It was carried out on 151 patients who had complete repair of tetralogy of Fallot. Descriptive statistics of preoperative, operative and postoperative demographic and technical data were presented. Univariate and multivariate cox regression models were used to identify the surgical techniques effects on length of hospital stay.

Results: We enrolled 151 subjects, 65.6% male. The median age was two years (interquartile range 1.25, 3). Twenty-six patients died after surgery, and the early mortality rate was 17.2%. Transannular Patch TAP was associated with increasing of length of hospital stay after surgery (hazard ratio [HR]=0.56, 95% confidence interval (CI) =0.33-0.95) with p value= 0.03.

Conclusions: The early morbidity and mortality rate after surgical repair of tetralogy of fallot is still high in our country, and the Transannular Patch was the only surgical technique associated with increasing of Length of Hospital Stay in this study.