[Transposition of the great arteries: results of treatment in the years 1967--1980 (author's transl)].

To demonstrate how the prognosis for a newborn with transposition of the great arteries (TGA) has improved, the clinical data of 121 children diagnosed between January 1967 and December 1979 were reviewed. 104 patients had an initial balloon atrial septostomy; 34 infants needed palliative operations (resection of ductus or coarctation, banding of the pulmonary artery and aortic-pulmonary anastomosis). Corrective surgery was according to Mustard (43), Senning (7), Rastelli (5) or an anatomic correction (2). 80% of the infants survived the first month of life. 25% died between the first month and corrective surgery. The mortality of the intraatrial switch operations decreased from 28% before 1976 to 12% in the following years. After Mustard's operation cardiac rhythm disturbances occurred in 39.4%, hemodynamic complications in 24,2% of the cases. Neurological complications developed more frequently in children with simple TGA (27.3%) than in children with combined TGA (18.2%). Owing to improvement of conservative and operative treatment the 2-years survival rate increased from 48.5% between 1967--1970 to 62.5% between 1977--1979.