Abstract
During a 10 year period, 11 infants including 6 neonates underwent surgical repair of coarctation of the aorta. A ventricular septal defect was present in all but one patient with dextrocardia. 10 patients underwent two-stage repair and one patient underwent one-stage repair. Of the 10 patients with two-stage repair, 4 had pulmonary artery banding. Of the 6 patients without pulmonary artery banding, 3 were less than 0.5 of Pp/Ps and their VSDs became smaller or closed spontaneously. The other 3 patients with greater than 0.8 of Pp/Ps required intracardiac repair before extubation of the tracheal tube. There was one hospital death with left ventricular outflow tract obstruction and hypoplastic aortic arch. All patients with pulmonary artery banding were able to undergo elective intracardiac repair after extubation of the tracheal tube. One patient with one-stage repair was low risk preoperativley and did well postoperatively. We suggest that two-stage repair with pulmonary artery banding be performed in high risk patients.
