[Atrio-ventricular canal: possibilities of recovery].

UNLABELLED: The evolution and prognosis of the atrioventricular canal (AVC) depend very much on the clinical type of the disease and its recovery is sometimes an extremely difficult problem.

METHODS

The evolution of the 24 cases with atrioventricular canal (10 boys and 14 girls), registered in the files of pediatric cardiology consulting room from the Outpatient Department of the "Sf. Spiridon" Hospital from Iaşi, has been studied. According to the state of the patients and, especially, with the parents' permission, these children were sent to Cardiovascular Surgery, for corrective surgical treatment. Before that, they had received a medical treatment for the cardiac failure (digitals, diuretics) and for the pulmonary hypertension (beta-adrenergic blockers, renin angiotensin inhibitors) and they continued this treatment for 1-2 years after the surgical correction.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS: This sample included: 9 cases with AVC-complete type; 1 case with AVC-intermediate type; 14 cases with AVC-partial type (13 cases with atrial septal defect-ostium primum + mitral valve cleft and 1 case with left ventricle to right atrium type IIa communication). Only 7 of the 10 children with AVC partial type were surgically corrected, and in all cases the evolution was positive. Three of the nine cases with AVC complete type were investigated in Cardiovascular Surgery in our country, all of them considered without surgical solution. For one of the cases with AVC--complete type and pulmonary stenosis, considered also without surgical solution, a palliative systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt was made, for the improvement of the pulmonary circulation.

CONCLUSIONS

1. AVC partial type could be recovered in the best conditions in the clinics of cardiovascular surgery in our country. 2. AVC--complete type didn't have, in our cases, surgical solution, either in our country or abroad. 3. For the special situation of the AVC complete type with pulmonary stenosis, the only treatment possible was palliative, performed to increase the pulmonary artery blood flow.