Adult survivors of moderate and great complexity congenital heart disease undergoing general surgery procedures: How do they fare?

BACKGROUND: Patients with complex congenital heart disease (CHD) are now commonly surviving well into adulthood. We describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes for a cohort of adult patients with moderate and great complexity CHD undergoing general surgery procedures.

METHODS: The electronic records of two tertiary centers were queried to identify adult patients with moderate and great complexity CHD who underwent a general surgery procedure between 2007 and 2017.

RESULTS: 118 adult patients were included in the analysis. The mean age was 36 ± 17 years and 49.2% were male. The most common cardiac diagnoses were pulmonary valve anomaly (24.6%), tetralogy of Fallot (18.6%), coarctation of the aorta (15.3%) and common/single ventricle (10.2%). The most common general surgery procedures performed were cholecystectomy (23.7%), herniorrhaphy (23.7%) and colorectal resection (9.3%). In-hospital mortality and morbidity were 2.5% and 11.9%, respectively.

CONCLUSION: Adults survivors of moderate and great complexity CHD undergoing common general surgery procedures in this study experienced excellent in-hospital outcomes.