Permanent Cardiac Pacing After Open Heart Surgery: Congenital Heart Disease

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Abstract
A retrospective review of 6,004 patients who underwent open repair of congenital heart defects revealed that 132 patients (2.2%) required permanent cardiac pacing postoperative/y. The indications for pacing were early atrioventricular (AV) block in 55%, late onset AV block in 31%, and sick sinus syndrome in 34%. A ventricular septal defect (VSD) was the most common congenital anomaly present alone or in association with other lesions in 67% of the patients. Atrial surgery accounted for 21% of the patients requiring pacing. Ten-year patient survival was found to be 66% (± 6%). Thirty-five percent of the deaths were sudden and unexpected, presumably due to an arrhythmia. Reoperation for pacing system failure has occurred too frequently (12% per year). The most common causes for reoperation were battery failure (44%) and exit block (25%).