Introduction: The Norwood stage 1 procedure was modified by Sano with right ventricle-pulmonary artery (RV-PA) conduit replacing BT shunt. In our institution, this has been further modified by placing the conduit from the RV outflow tract to the right side of the neo-aorta.
Patients and methods: Between April 2002 and October 2008, 227 modified Norwood procedures were performed. Eighteen had the Sano modification with the conduit to the left of the neo-aorta whereas 209 had the right-sided modification, which is the study population. A total of 18 (8.6%) patients presented with cyanosis due to conduit stenosis with median age 4 months and median weight 6.3 kg.
Results: Twelve patients underwent transcatheter stent placement in stenosed RV-PA conduit. A total of 16 coronary stents were implanted in 12 patients with 4 patients each receiving 2 stents. The mean saturations increased from 60% to 74%. There was one late mortality which was non-procedure related. Five patients treated with surgical take down of the RV-PA conduit and creation of a cavo-pulmonary shunt, whilst one patient had replacement of RV-PA conduit. There were no early postoperative deaths. The mean saturations improved from 54% to 75%.
Conclusions: The RV-PA conduit stenosis is a life-threatening complication after the modified Norwood Stage I procedure. This may require urgent surgery to replace the conduit or to perform a cavo-pulmonary shunt but as an alternative, transcatheter stent placement can be used with equal effectiveness and with a low risk of complications. The catheter approach is less invasive and the results show that it is an excellent option to relieve the stenosis even in the right-sided RV-PA conduit.