Surveillance Cultures and Infection in 230 Pacemaker and Defibrillator Generator Changes in Pediatric and Adult Congenital Patients.

Background: Postoperative infections can occur during surgical replacement of pulse generators for pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators. The incidence of infection is poorly documented in children and patients with adult congenital heart disease. The utility of surveillance cultures obtained from device pocket swabs is unknown in this group.

Revisiting the Baffes operation: its role in transposition of the great arteries.

Thomas Baffes developed one of the first operations for transposition of the great arteries directing inferior vena cava flow to the left atrium using an interposed homograft in the era before open heart surgery. He performed 117 Baffes operations from 1953 to 1960, with 30% overall mortality, and an additional 85 Baffes procedures before 1968, allowing many to survive until the atrial baffle operations. During the early days before hospitals had cardiopulmonary bypass machines, Tom Baffes and colleagues purchased a heart-lung machine and transported it to various Chicago hospitals to treat patients and stimulate interest in this emerging technology.

Impact of noncardiac congenital and genetic abnormalities on outcomes in hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

Background: Hypoplastic left heart syndrome may coexist with noncardiac congenital defects or genetic syndromes. We explored the impact of such lesions on outcomes after staged univentricular palliation.

Methods: Society of Thoracic Surgeons database 2002 to 2006: Children diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome who underwent stage 1 Norwood (n = 1,236), stage 2 superior cavopulmonary anastamosis (n = 702) or stage 3 Fontan (n = 553) procedures were studied.

Arrhythmic complications associated with the treatment of patients with congenital cardiac disease: consensus definitions from the Multi-Societal Database Committee for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease.

A detailed hierarchal nomenclature of arrhythmias is offered with definition of its applications to diagnosis and complications. The conceptual and organizational approach to discussion of arrhythmias employs the following sequence: location--mechanism--aetiology--duration. The classification of arrhythmias is heuristically divided into an anatomical hierarchy: atrial, junctional, ventricular, or atrioventricular.

Virtues of a worldwide congenital heart surgery database.

The rationale for a congenital heart surgery database lies in the organized manner in which information can be compiled to accomplish programmatic evaluation, monitor clinical outcomes, comply with governmental requirements, perform retrospective and prospective clinical studies, and participate in local, national, and global improvement strategies. The task of inaugurating an effective congenital heart surgery database has taken many years and involved concurrent development efforts at multiple sites. Two such efforts took place in North America with the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Congenital Heart Surgery Database, and in Europe with the European Congenital Heart Defects Database.