Pulmonary orifice stenosis: the medical solution. Apropos of 62 cases

Sixty two patients with moderate or severe stenosis of the pulmonary orifice (SPO) underwent balloon catheter valvuloplasty. Thirty one were aged under 5 years. The mean right ventricle-pulmonary artery trunk (RV-PAT) gradient fell from 75 (+/- 26) to 23 (+/- 10) mmHg (p less than 0.001). All dilatations except one were effective with only a few incidents and no mortality. Six (+/- 2) months later, hemodynamic evaluation of 45 patients (70%) showed stability of the RV-PAT gradient at 26 (+/- 18) as compared with 23 (+/- 11) mmHg. Ten patients required a second dilatation because of a residual gradient of greater than 35 mmHg. The result was favourable in all ten cases, the RV-PAT gradient falling from 53 (+/- 17) to 13 (+/- 8) mmHg (p less than 0.001). This series confirmed the efficacy, reproducibility and safety of this technique which led to a lowering of ventriculo-pulmonary gradient, persistent at six months, to an infra-surgical level, at the price of pulmonary incompetence (27%) which was always well tolerated in the mid-term. This valvuloplasty may be suggested for all cases of SPO with a gradient of greater than 35 mmHg.