All issues > Volume 29(8); 1986

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1986;29(8):830-835. Published online August 31, 1986.

The Criteria for Surgical Correction of Ventricular Septal Defect by Non-invasive Diagnostic Methods.

Chuhl Joo Lyu¹, Jun Hee Sul¹, Sung Kyu Lee¹, Dong Shik Chin¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, Yonsei University, College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Abstract

In selected cases, early corrective surgery is indicated in the management of infants with moderate or large ventricular septal defects. The risks of any surgical procedure in infancy are acknowledged to be great and should be avoided if possible. However, these surgical risks are justified when the patients have intractable congestive heart failure, marked growth retardation, recurrent prolonged lower respiratory infections and severe pulmonary hypertension. Cardiac catheterization should be included for diagnosis of congenital heart diseases before surgery. However, the risk of such study, even in experienced laboratories, is life threatening among the small, severely ill infants. Thirty-six infants and children under the age of 2 years underwent patch closure of a ventricular septal defect without cardiac catheterization and revealed good results. All patients were selected under the criteria of operation without cardiac catheterization. We concluded that two dimensional echocardiography provided a reliable and promising non-invasive method of identifying the ventricular septal defect in high risk small, severely ill patients.

Keywords :Ventricular septal defect; Two dimensional echocardiography.