Paraganglioma in an adolescent awaiting a cardiac transplant due to unrepaired congenital cyanotic heart disease and a univentricular heart: the first reported case

We report a case of a 16-year-old adolescent male born with univentricular congenital cyanotic heart disease (CCHD) who was diagnosed with an incidental paraganglioma while awaiting a cardiac transplant. The coexistence of paraganglioma and univentricular CCHD is very rare, with no previous cases described in the literature of a patient concurrently requiring a cardiac transplant. The complex physiology associated with a common atrium, common ventricle, aortopulmonary lung perfusion and a hypoplastic left lung rendered our patient extremely vulnerable to catecholamine-mediated effects of preload, contractility and afterload. The interactions and interdependence between these systems provided unique difficulties for perioperative management with serious implications for prospective cardiac transplant.

Results of Hemodynamic Correction in Patients with Double Outlet Right Ventricle

Aim. To analyze results of hemodynamic correction in surgical treatment of double outlet right ventricle (DORV). Маterials and methods. For the period from January 1996 to September 2017, 31 (6.03 % of total number of patients with DORV) patients underwent hemodynamic correction of DORV. The age of the patients ranged from 1 to 19 years (71.2 ± 50.5 months on the average). The weight of the patients ranged from 9 to 41 kg (19.6 ± 11.3 kg on the average). Of these, 19 (61.3 %) were male patients and 12 (38.7 %) were female patients. The overwhelming majority (25 (80.6 %)) of the patients were diagnosed with transposition-type DORV. The anatomy of DORV with non-committed ventricular septal defect was observed in 5 (16.1 %) patients. In one patient (3.1 %), the anatomy of DORV (in the form of tetralogy of Fallot) was combined with tricuspid valve atresia. Results. The main reasons of hemodynamic correction in 16 (51.6 %) cases was LV hypoplasia. In 2 cases it was combined with tricuspid valve (TV) straddling, and in 2 cases it was an integral part of the unbalanced form of complete atrio-ventricular communication (AVC). In one case (3.1 %), the unbalanced form of complete AVC was combined with a mixed form of the common ventricle. The mixed form of the common ventricle was the reason of hemodynamic correction in 9 (29 %) patients. In 2 (6.2 %) cases, hemodynamic correction was performed due to the anatomy of the RV hypoplasia. In the remaining 2 patients, anatomy of the common ventricle was not diagnosed, but a combination of other concomitant defects was a contraindication to biventricular correction. Palliative operations (Blalock-Taussig shunt, BTS) as the first stage of correction were performed in 16 (51.6 %) patients. In 2 patients with LV outflow tract obstruction, systemic-pulmonary anastomosis was applied in combination with plastic repair of the great vessel roots using the proprietary technique for elimination of the left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) stenosis. Bidirectional cavopulmonary anastomosis (BCPA) was applied in 29 (93.5 %) cases. Of these, 4 (13.8 %) patients subsequently underwent total cavopulmonary anastomosis (TCPA) procedure. Two patients with good hemodynamic parameters underwent TCPA without prior palliative procedures. Conclusion. Palliative surgery as the first stage to hemodynamic correction is accompanied by significant improvement in hemodynamic parameters of patients. Application of BCPA as the second stage of hemodynamic correction provides good results and is required to prepare the patient for TCPA. The long-term period is characterized by improvement in the quality of life in patients with complex DORV. In the long-term period, 85.2 % of patients are classified as NYHA FC I.

Abstract 16190: National Trends in RSV Hospitalizations in Children With Hemodynamically Significant Heart Disease, 1997-2009

Background: Children with hemodynamically significant heart disease (HS-HD) are at risk for morbidities and mortality due to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Palivizumab was approved for RSV prophylaxis in 1998. Guidelines released in December 2003 recommend palivizumab for all children < 2 yrs with HS-HD. We sought to define the impact of RSV prophylaxis in children with HS-HD by evaluating trends in U.S. RSV hospitalizations. Methods: The 1997, ’00, ’03, ’06 and ’09 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Kids’ Inpatient Databases (KID) were used to estimate U.S. RSV hospitalizations in children < 2 yrs, overall and in those with HS-HD, using standard HCUP weighting methods. RSV was defined by ICD-9-CM codes for RSV infection. HS-HD was defined using ICD-9-CM codes from the Clinical Classifications Software for congestive heart failure, or an ICD-9-CM code for pulmonary hypertension, common truncus, common ventricle, or hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Results: Our cohort included an estimated 461,491 RSV hospitalizations; 2,132 in children with HS-HD. Figure 1 depicts hospitalizations over time. There was no evident trend in number of overall RSV hospitalizations, however RSV hospitalizations in children with HS-HD declined by 39% from ’97 to ‘09. The largest decline was from ’97-’03. RSV hospitalizations in children with HS-HD relative to overall hospitalizations in children with HS-HD declined annually from ’97-’06 with a small increase in ‘09 (3.8%, 3.5%, 3.0%, 2.3% and 2.6% for successive analytic years). In 2009 mean hospital length of stay for children with HS-HD and RSV was 22.5 ± 2.1 days. Conclusions: RSV disease burden in children with HS-HD has declined since palivizumab approval. Much of this decline occurred before palivizumab was recommended for use in HS-HD, perhaps reflecting early adoption of prophylaxis, or greater awareness of alternative preventative strategies. RSV remains a significant cause of morbidity in children with HS-HD.

Nomenclature of the functionally univentricular heart

Hearts which, at first sight, seem to have a solitary chamber within their ventricular mass have long been the subject of controversy. As difficult as it is to manage these cardiac malformations medically and surgically, it has been at least as challenging, to date, merely to describe and classify them. Even the most commonly used terms, “single ventricle” and “univentricular heart”, spark heated debate. In distant times, when congenitally malformed hearts were pathological curiosities, these entities were described as “cor triloculare biatriale”. Therein lies the beginning of the problem, since when hearts of this type were examined by more enlightened pathologists, such as the great Maude Abbott,1it became plain that the apparently solitary ventricular mass in reality possessed a second, albeit much smaller, chamber. Abbott described this second structure as the “outlet chamber”. This convention of describing a “single ventricle”, albeit with a co-existing “outlet chamber”, that presumably lacked ventricular status, continued throughout the first half of the twentieth century, although it had been recognised by then that hearts could rarely be found with truly solitary ventricles, and these were typically deemed to be common structures. Van Praagh et al.2neatly summarised the problem with this approach when they pointed out that the so-called “single ventricle” possessed two ventricular chambers, whilst the “common ventricle” described the truly solitary arrangement. In their seminal investigation of 1964, Van Praagh et al.2analysed only those hearts unified because of double inlet atrioventricular connection, or alignment. They excluded arbitrarily from their investigation all hearts with atrioventricular valvar atresia, despite the similarity in morphology between many of these latter lesions and the hearts with double inlet.3