Treatment of Infants with Pulmonary Atresia and Intact Ventricular Septum: Long-term Follow-up

In many centers, catheter perforation of the atretic pulmonary valve followed by balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty has become the initial palliative approach for babies born with pulmonary atresia and intact ventricular septum (PAIVS). This report represents the accumulated experience of a group in Paris, France with 39 selected neonates with PAIVS over 11 years (1991–2001). They excluded cases with complicating features known to affect the short- and long-term course of PAIVS that were independent of the quality of relief of valve obstruction. Thirty-nine neonates in this very favorable subset of infants born with PAIVS underwent attempted catheter perforation of the pulmonary valve, and 33 procedures were deemed acutely successful (85%). There were 2 periprocedural deaths …