Postoperative outcomes in patients with post infarction ventricular septal defect – Institutional experience

Abstract

Context: Postinfarction ventricular septal defect (VSD) is a rare but serious complication of myocardial infarction with a reported incidence of 1% to 3% in the pre thrombolytic era and <0.5% post thrombolytic therapy. Risk of death is greatest immediately after myocardial defect and then gradually declines. Early surgical treatment is recommended; however, surgical repair is associated with a high rate of mortality. Aim: To investigate the immediate survival outcome and prognostic factors associated with surgical repair of postinfarction ventricular septal rupture at our institute over a 3-year period. Materials and Methods: From April 2012 to April 2015, 32 patients underwent surgical repair of post-infarction ventricular septal rupture at our institute. Patients were identified from the electronic medical records database and preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative variables were retrieved. Multiple perioperative variables such as anthropometric data, demography, and clinical history and preoperative details such as echocardiographic indices, coronary angiography, and intraoperative variables were analyzed. The outcomes were compared between the survivors and nonsurvivors. Results: Overall, younger patients tolerated the disease and the surgery better than the older population (59.96 ± 10.67 vs. 69.11 ± 8.11; P = 0.02). Female sex, cardiogenic shock (n = 20, 86.95% vs. n = 2, 22.22%; P = 0.001), and emergency surgery were independently associated with higher risk of postoperative mortality. History of systemic hypertension was found to be significantly associated with poor postoperative outcomes (survivors n = 9, 39.1% vs. nonsurvivors n = 8, 88.9%; P = 0.017). In our series, the overall mortality was 28.1% (n = 9). Higher NYHA class at presentation, intra-aortic balloon pump requirement and low ejection fraction are all independently associated with poor outcomes. Longer interval between the myocardial infarct and surgical repair is associated with a lower risk of operative mortality. Preoperative renal dysfunction (61.77 ± 19.04 vs. 41.36 ± 21.15; P = 0.025) and postoperative renal dysfunction (65.26 ± 28.81 vs. 27.27 ± 9.04; P = 0.001) is one of the most important predictors of postoperative outcome. The duration of aortic cross-clamp and cardiopulmonary bypass was not associated with early mortality in this study (89.17 ± 42.70 vs. 97.11 ± 76.38; P = 0.775). Conclusion: Postinfarction VSD still remains one of the most challenging conditions to treat surgically with considerable early mortality. Although percutaneous device closure and left ventricular assist devices may be used as a method to stabilize the patient preoperatively and improve the chances of survival after surgery, it is currently not advocated as a definitive treatment option. All efforts should be made to predict and prevent postoperative renal dysfunction as it is the single-most important factor affecting both short- and long-term survival outcomes.