Article Text
Abstract
Objective A high risk of morbidity and mortality is well documented in adults with a Fontan circulation. The difference in outcomes between those with and without significant morbidity at the time of transition to adult care has not been well characterised.
Methods We analysed clinical outcomes in patients enrolled in the Australian and New Zealand Fontan Registry ≥16 years of age. Low risk (LR) Fontan patients were defined as those without history of sustained arrhythmia, thromboembolic event, transplantation, Fontan conversion, protein-losing enteropathy, plastic bronchitis, New York Heart Association class III/IV and/or moderate/severe atrioventricular valve regurgitation or ventricular dysfunction. Increased risk (IR) patients had one or more risk factor.
Results Inclusion criteria were met in 822 patients; mean age 26±8 years, median follow-up from age 16 was 9 years, 203 had atriopulmonary connection (APC) and 619 had total cavopulmonary connection (TCPC). Survival at 30 years was higher in the LR versus IR; 94% versus 82% (p=0.005), 89% versus 77% (p=0.07) for APC and 96% versus 89% (p=0.05) for TCPC. LR patients experienced less Fontan failure (HR 0.34, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.49, p<0.001) and ventricular dysfunction (HR 0.46, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.71, p=0.001) compared with IR patients. For LR TCPC patients, modelled survival projections at 60 years were 49%–67%.
Conclusions Clinical outcomes for adolescents LR at transition to adult care are markedly superior to those who have established risk factors for Fontan failure, which is an important consideration when formulating individualised long-term risk estimates and counselling patients.
- Fontan physiology
- complex congenital heart disease
- health care delivery
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Footnotes
DWB and MRD are joint first authors.
Contributors All authors meet criteria for authorship based on ICMJE guidelines and contributed in the following way; conception (RC) and design of the work (all authors), data collection (DWB, MRD, DZ, CS and DPM), data analysis and interpretation (DZ, CS, DWB, MRD and RC), drafting the article (DWB, MRD and RC), critical revision of the article (all authors) and final approval of the version to be published (all authors). The lead author (RC) accepts responsibility of overall content as guarantor.
Funding This work was supported by an NHMRC Partnership Grant (1076849). YdU is a Clinician Practitioner Fellow of the NHMRC (1082186).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available on reasonable request. Data are available from the Australian and New Zealand Fontan registry. Written application will be reviewed by the Fontan Registry Steering Committee. Please contact info@fontanregistry.com or visit fontanregistry.com.
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