Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Drainage: Results of Open-Heart Correction in Four Infants

During the past 10 years, both diagnosis and surgical treatment of many forms of congenital heart disease have become simplified and are performed routinely and successfully in many centers. Problems associated with management of the less common, more complex cardiac anomalies are, however, still far from solved. One of the most interesting, relatively less common, groups are the patients with total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage. Without treatment, the majority of these patients die in infancy. The lesions appear to be anatomically correctable, and yet the first few years of surgical experience with such patients have been disappointing. The purposes of this paper are to present 4 infants with total anomalous pulmonary venous return treated surgically, to review the reported surgical results, and to discuss the present status of surgical treatment of this group of patients. Report of Cases Case1.—This 6-month-old white female was admitted to the Children's Memorial