Echocardiography guided bed side balloon atrial septostomy in dextro transposed great arteries (dTGA) with intact ventricular septum (IVS): A resource limited country experience

Objective: To determine effectiveness and safety of echocardiography guided bed side Balloon Atrial Septostomy (BAS) in dextro transposition of great Arteries (dTGA) with intact ventricular septum (IVS) at a public sector tertiary care hospital Karachi, Pakistan.

Methods: This case series include 40 patients with echocardiographic findings of dTGA with IVS and restricted PFO (≤ 2mm) who underwent bedside BAS at department of pediatric cardiology NICVD, Karachi, Pakistan. We recorded pre and post BAS diameter of PFO/Atrial Septal Defect (ASD), oxygen saturation (SpO2 %), and post procedure complications and outcome.

Results: Median age was 16 days, Majority of them (n=23, 58%) were severely cyanosed with SpO2 of 41.4±3.4% and underwent emergency BAS and remaining underwent elective procedure. An increase in SpO2% from 46.0±6% to 81.0±3.0% (p=< 0.001) and ASD size from 1.4±2.8mm to 5.45±0.4mm was observed (p=< 0.001). No complication was observed in most of cases (n=28, 70%). Mean hospital stay was 3.4±1 days. Success rate was 97.5% however, one neonate died due to neonatal sepsis.

Conclusion: Our study provides sufficient evidence that bed side balloon atrial septostomy is a safer technique, save a lot of time and resources which were required otherwise in transporting these patients to catheterization laboratory.