Hypothermic circulatory arrest with or without antegrade cerebral perfusion for aortic arch surgery in infants

Mohamed Abdel Fouly

doi:10.35810/ects.v1i3.65

Mohamed Abdel Fouly Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35810/ects.v1i3.65

Keywords: Antegrade cerebral perfusion, Aortic arch, Hypothermia, Mortality

Abstract

Background: Antegrade cerebral perfusion (ACP) minimizes deep hypothermic circulatory arrest (DHCA) duration during arch surgery in infants, which may impact the outcomes of the repair. We aimed to evaluate the effect of adding antegrade cerebral perfusion to deep hypothermic circulatory arrest on DHCA duration and operative outcomes of different aortic arch operations in infants.

Methods: We retrospectively collected data from infants (<20 weeks old) who underwent aortic arch reconstruction (Norwood operation, arch reconstruction for the hypoplastic arch and interrupted aortic arch) using DHCA alone (n=88) or combined with ACP (n=26). We excluded patients who had concomitant procedures and those with preoperative neurological disability.

Results: There was no difference between groups as regards the age, gender, and the operation performed (p= 0.64; 0.87 and 0.50; respectively). Among the 114 patients, 11 (9.6%) had operative mortality, and 14 (12.3%) had cerebral infarction diagnosed with CT scanning. Adding ACP to DHCA significantly reduced DHCA duration from 50.7 ± 10.6 minutes to 22.4 ± 6.2 minutes (p<0.001) and lowered the mortality (11 vs. 0; p=0.066) and cerebral infarction (13 vs. 1; p=0.18). No statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of ischemic time (p=0.63) or hospital stay duration (p=0.47).

Conclusion: Using ACP appears to reduce the DHCA duration and was associated with better survival and neurological outcomes of aortic arch surgery in infants. A study with longer follow-up to evaluate the long-term neurological sequelae is recommended.