Abstract
From January 1989 to December 1993, cardiac catheterization and open heart surgery for ventricular septal defect closure were performed in 115 pediatric patients who were selected as meeting the criteria for elective closure of restrictive ventricular septal defect. These criteria included age greater than 1 year and less than 15 years, no evidence of congestive heart failure, Qp/Qs 2.0, pulmonary artery systolic pressure 35mmHg, and no associated cardiac anomalies. Mean age of patients was 5.25$\pm$ 3.53, and 72 patients were male, 43 patients were female[male:female=1.9:1 . Mean systolic pulmonary artery pressure was 19.66$\pm$4.79mmHg, and mean pulmonary to systemic flow ratio was 1.27$\pm$ 0.28. Aortic cusp prolapse was present in 30 patients [26% , aortic insufficiency was present in 1 paient, and 1 patient had prior bacterial endocarditis. There were no instances of complete atrioventricular dissociation, reoperations for bleeding, or reoperations for recurrent ventricular septal defect, but wound infection was present in 1 patient, and there were 7 patients who had the hemodynamically insignificant remnant shunt. There were no early or late deaths or major morbidity.