From February 1979 to March 1986, 50 patients were submitted to pulmonary artery banding in order to control congestive heart failure and to prevent pulmonary vascular disease. Twenty-three patients were male and 17 were female. The mean age was 6 months (20 days to 17 months). The preoperative diagnosis were: ventricular septal defect (22), atrioventricular canal (6), double outlet right ventricle (2), tricuspid atresia (2), transposition of the great arteries (3), truncus arteriosus (2), single ventricle (1) and complexes pathologies (2). The pulmonary banding was carried out under control of the pulmonary artery pressure. Two patients (5 per cent) died on the immediate postoperative period: one patient in atrioventricular block and another in sepsis. One patient died of pneumonia on the late postoperative period. The remaining patients had a satisfactory evolution, increasing 400g of weight monthly. Thirteen patients were submitted to hemodynamic studies on the postoperative period (mean 21 months). Important reduction in pulmonary pressures and flows were then observed, including in five cases with A-V canal. Thirteen patients were reoperated on to correct their underlying defects one year after the banding. Then, one patient died in the immediate postoperative phase and another on the late phase. One of the six patients with A-V canal died on the immediate postoperative period and the others were reoperated for correction of the defects, with good results.
pulmonary artery banding