Echocardiographic studies of children operated on for congenital heart disease; evaluation during the first postoperative year.

Fifty-five children in 6 diagnostic groups were followed with repeated echocardiographic examinations during the first postoperative year to establish profiles for different congenital cardiac malformations. One year after total correction, patients with Fallot's anomaly, with and without previous shunt, showed an enlargement of the right ventricular dimension (RVD), the left ventricular internal dimension (LVIDd), the aortic root dimension (AOD), and the left atrial dimension (LAD) compared with normal. In patients with ventricular septal defect (VSD), LVIDd was enlarged; in patients who had been operated on previously with pulmonary banding, both RVD and AOD were enlarged. Patients with VSD and pulmonary stenosis (PS) showed enlarged RVD and AOD but small right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT). Patients with secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) had enlarged RVD, AOD, LVIDd, and LAD. Left ventricular function as judged by echocardiography was normal in all groups pre- and postoperatively. The importance of establishing postoperative echocardiographic profiles is illustrated by patients where deviations from expected findings indicated an unsatisfactory result of the operation and the need for reoperation.