Coexistence of down syndrome and complet atrioventricular septal defect and their effects on sugical outcomes, a retrospective study

AVSD is a congenital hearth disease which has an incidence of 4-5,3 per 10.000 live birth and %7 of all congenital hearth diseases are AVSDs.[2,3] Despite of recent advancements on both medical technologies and surgical techniques, AVSD has an important place due to its high mortality rates. So the main purpose of this study is to examine surgical outcomes in both clinics and to understand Down syndromes effect on those outcomes. In our study, we retrospectively examined 74 patients who underwent surgical repair for complet AVSD in Dokuz Eylul University Hospital and Behcet Uz Childrens Hospital. We divided these patients into groups based on their age at operation, weight at operation, pulmonary artery pressure values and technique of operation and examined how these factors effected mortality and morbidity. 45(%60,8) of these patients had Down syndrome. Their mean age at operation was 7,60(±4,178) months and mean weight at operation was 5,57(±1,544)kg. 19(%25,7) patients operated using doube patch technique and on the rest modified single-patch technique was used. Although it prolongs the ICU and total hospital stay, Down syndrome had no effect on mortality and morbidity of these patients. This means Down syndrome is no longer a risk factor in AVSD surgery. While age and weight at operation day didn't have an effect on mortality, our study showed that PHT that contiues postoperatively significantly increases postoperative mortality. In conclusion the best strategy for getting good surgical results with low mortality is to operate these patients as early as possible. Key words: complet AVSD, Down syndrome, surgical outcomes