[Outcome of infants operated on for aortic coarctation before 3 months of age].

Between January 1966 and June 1982, 177 infants less than 3 months of age underwent surgical cure of coarctation of the aorta. Seventy-one percent had associated cardiac lesions not including a patent ductus arteriosus. With the cure of the coarctation either by resection anastomosis or angioplasty, 45% underwent associated surgical procedure, mainly pulmonary artery banding. Early mortality was 26% for the last 4 years of the study. Early deaths, significantly correlated with the severity of the preoperative heart failure and the importance of pulmonary hypertension, were not correlated with an associated heart disease. Of the 95 survivors operated on before December 31, 1981 and with a long follow-up, 18 died later on. Late deaths are related with associated cardiac malformations. Thirty-nine (41%) of the survivors had recurrent coarctation. This was correlated with the year of surgery and not with the surgical technique. In cases with coarctation of the aorta surgical cure should not be withheld before age 3 months, when there is heart failure, with or without associated cardiac malformations. The mortality, even in isolated coarctation (6%), the occurrence of sudden deaths after good surgical repair, the frequency of recoarctations lead to suggest that in infants under 3 months of age, careful supervision and conservative medical treatment should be considered, if the coarctation is isolated and well tolerated.