Implantation and Intermediate-term Follow-up of Stents in Congenital Heart Disease

Background: Balloon-expandable stents (Johnson and Johnson Interventional Systems) have been in use for congenital heart disease since late 1989. They have made possible treatment in previously untreatable branch pulmonary artery stenoses and systemic venous stenosis. The purpose of this report is to detail the results and intermediate-term follow-up of stents used for treatment of congenital heart disease.

Methods And Results: Eighty-five patients underwent placement of 121 stents in Houston and Boston. Fifty-eight patients had stents put in pulmonary arteries, nine had stents in conduits or outflow tracts, and 21 had stents in venous stenoses or narrowed Fontan anastomoses. (Three patients had stents in two locations.) These stent procedures resulted in gradient reduction from 55.2 +/- 33.3 to 14.2 +/- 13.5 mm Hg in pulmonary arteries, from 41.4 +/- 26.0 to 20.7 +/- 17.0 mm Hg in conduits or outflow tracts, and from 9.8 +/- 6.9 to 2.4 +/- 3.1 mm Hg in venous stenoses or Fontan anastomoses. Diameter of narrowings increased from 4.6 +/- 2.3 to 11.3 +/- 3.2 mm in the pulmonary artery, from 8.8 +/- 3.6 to 12.7 +/- 2.6 in conduits, and from 3.8 +/- 2.9 to 11.3 +/- 2.8 in venous stenoses. Follow-up has shown stent fracture in one patient, restenosis in one, and sudden death in one. Recatheterization has been done in 38 patients an average of 8.6 months after stent installation. Compared with immediately postimplant data, there was no significant change in luminal diameter or pressure gradient. Redilation was performed in 14 patients (17 stents) 1 week to 24 months after implantation (mean, 10.2 months), with a small but significant increase in stenosis diameter.

Conclusions: We conclude that stent treatment of vascular stenoses in congenital heart disease retains efficacy at medium-term follow-up and offers a much-improved outlook for patients with these lesions.