Adults with small, unrepaired atrial septal defects have reduced cardiac index during exercise.

Objectives: Small, unrepaired atrial septal defects are considered a benign lesion with good prognosis. Recently, clinical and register-based studies discovered increased long-term mortality and morbidity. The nature of these findings is not fully understood.

Functional Capacity Past Age 40 in Patients With Congenital Ventricular Septal Defects.

Background Ventricular septal defects (VSD), when treated correctly in childhood, are considered to have great prognoses, and the majority of patients are discharged from follow-up when entering their teens. Young adults were previously found to have poorer functional capacity than healthy peers, but the question remains whether functional capacity degenerates further with age. Methods and Results A group of 30 patients with surgically closed VSDs (51±8 years) with 30 matched, healthy control participants (52±9 years) and a group of 30 patients with small unrepaired VSDs (55±12 years) and 30 matched control participants (55±10 years) underwent cardiopulmonary exercise testing using an incremental workload protocol and noninvasive gas measurement.

Pulmonary Function in Older Patients With Ventricular Septal Defect.

To better understand the evolvement of the pulmonary dysfunction in the aging ventricular septal defect (VSD) patient, we invited adult patients with a congenital VSD and healthy age- and gender-matched controls for static and dynamic spirometry, impulse oscillometry, multiple breath washout, and diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide testing. Primary outcome was forced expiratory volume in 1 second. In total, 30 patients with a surgically corrected VSD (mean age 51 ± 8 years), 30 patients with a small, unrepaired VSD (mean age 55 ± 1 years), and 2 groups of 30 age- and gender-matched, healthy controls (mean age 52 ± 9 years and 55 ± 10 years, respectively) were included.