Hypoplastic left heart syndrome: lack of correlation between preoperative demographic and laboratory findings and survival following palliative surgery.

To determine whether preoperative demographic and metabolic variables correlated with early or late survival following palliative surgery for hypoplastic left heart syndrome, we reviewed the charts of 89 patients operated upon from October 1984 to January 1987. The variables analyzed were age at operation, lowest preoperative pH and H2CO3, highest preoperative arterial oxygen saturation, the occurrence of a preoperative cardiorespiratory arrest, and location of birth relative to the surgical institution. The data were evaluated by chi-squared, multivariate, and life-table analyses to the end of the first postoperative year. None of the factors analyzed significantly correlated with either short-term (less than or equal to 30 days) or long-term (greater than 30 days) survival. Thus, neither demographic nor metabolic factors including prior cardiorespiratory arrest should be considered contraindications to surgical palliation for hypoplastic left heart syndrome.