Long term Result of Valve Replacement in Children

소아 심장판막치환술의 장기성적

Valve replacements in 82 children, aging up to 15 years[mean 11.67 years] were done at Seoul National University Hospital during 13 years period from 1974 to 1986. The patients were composed of 5] males and 31 females and 50 patients had acquired heart disease and 32 patients congenital heart disease. 75 patients received single valve replacements, 6 patients double valve replacements, 1 patient triple valve replacement, and among all of them, 11 patients redo-replacements. The bioprosthetic valves have been applied to 58 patients and prosthetic valve to 24 patients and the latter was the main artificial valve since 1984. Among the 69 patients who had definite post-operative records, the overall mortality was 27.5%[20.3% was early mortality and 7.2% late mortality] and the overall mortality was lowered to 4.3% since 1984. There were early post-operative complication rate of 26.1% and late complication rate 34.8%, and among the latter, the valve failure rate was 11.4% patient-year, and the thrombo-embolism rate 1.76%/patient-year. 55 patients among the survivals after post-operative 1 month, were received follow-up with various anticoagulating medication for total 2046 patient-months[mini-mum 1 month to maximum 90 month, mean 37.2*25.44 months] and actuarial survival rate was 82*8% at 5 years and valve failure free and thrombo-embolic free survival rate were 61*8% and 90*3% respectively. And among them, valve failure free survival `rate of tissue valve were 91*6% at post-operative 2 years, 78*3% at 3 years, 59*9% at 4 years, 54*10% at 5 years, 53*15% at 6 years, so markedly decreased at 3-5 years post-operatively. These results suggest that cardiac valve replacement in children have been effective therapeutic method though various problems are still remained, and the choice of valve should be prosthetic valve mainly due to its durability at the present.