Santos Walter, Pereira Salomé, Camacho Ana, Marques Vasco, Matos Pedro, Gomes Veloso
Serviço de Cardiologia, Hospital Central de Faro, Faro, Portugal.
Rev Port Cardiol. 2009 Apr;28(4):473-7.
Tetralogy of Fallot is one of the most common forms of cyanotic congenital heart disease. In the absence of surgical correction it has high early mortality, with most patients dying in childhood. Survival beyond the seventh decade of life is extremely rare. The authors present the case of a patient with uncorrected tetralogy of Fallot who survived to the age of eighty. The longevity of this patient is certainly linked to the association between a large ventricular septal defect and "balanced" pulmonary stenosis: sufficiently mild not to cause severe hypoxia, but significant enough to protect the pulmonary vasculature.
