Mitsuru Nakagaki

Surgical Treatment of Congenital Heart Disease with Special Reference to the Application of Hypothermia

This report presents the results of operation for congenital heart disease using two different methods of hypothermia: (1) Immersion hypothermia alone. Of the 782 patients who underwent open-heart operations using this method the results were good in patients whose intracardiac surgical repair took less than one hour (average mortality rate, 5.6%). (2) Rapid extracorporeal cooling. Of the 269 patients with congenital heart diseases such as ventricular septal defect, tetralogy of Fallot, or atrioventricular canal with low cardiac reserve who underwent operation with mild to moderate hypothermia utilizing rapid extracorporeal cooling, the mortality was 11.2%. In the 151 patients with more serious defects, including the extreme form of tetralogy of Fallot, single ventricle, and truncus arteriosus, who underwent open-heart operations with deep hypothermia utilizing extracorporeal cooling, the mortality rate was 15.2%.