Determinants of Adverse Outcomes After Systemic-To-Pulmonary Shunts in Biventricular Circulation

Hobbes and colleagues retrospectively evaluated systemic-to-pulmonary shunt procedures for 173 patients over a 10-year period at a single institution. Despite their importance for many patients with single ventricle or complex biventricular lesions, shunt procedures carry a high risk of morbidity and mortality. The authors found the main predictors of morbid events in their cohort were patient characteristics such as extracardiac or genetic anomalies and needing preoperative ventilation, but not age, weight, or shunt size to weight ratio. Additionally, oxygen saturation on ICU admission and amount of platelets transfused each predicted early shunt thrombosis.