New Aspects of Anesthetic Management in Congenital Heart Disease “Common Arterial Trunk”

Now-a-days truncus arteriosus has been known as “common arterial trunk” (CAT) and is an uncommon congenital cardiac defect presenting in about 1-3% congenital heart disease. Environmental and genetic factors effects on incidence of CAT and other conotruncal anomalies. The majority patients with CAT and 22q11 deletion have other anomalies such as hypoplasia or aplasia of the thymus or parathyroid glands and immune deficits (T-cell deficiency), calcium metabolism disorder (hypocalcemia), palatal defects, learning and speech disorder, craniofacial anomalies, and neuropsychological abnormalities. CAT without surgical treatment frequently involves early severe pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) or early death from heart failure and associated conditions. Therefore, without corrective surgical repair, most CAT patients die in the initial years of life. In numerous centers early surgical repair associated with superior than 80% long-standing survival. Anesthesiologist must be performs comprehensive preoperative evaluation of infants or neonates with this disorder. In CAT patient exactly hemodynamic monitoring and suitable techniques to regulate pulmonary vascular resistance and systemic vascular resistance and cardiac function are more important than the select of a special anesthetic drug. Therefore, anesthetic drugs should be carefully administrated and titrate and under monitoring. Management of CAT after surgical repair depends on the adequacy of treatment, cardiac function, level of PAH, and degree of bleeding. Inotropic support is frequently necessary after the cardiac ischemia associated to the surgical repair. Pulmonary vasodilator drugs were used to PAH treatment.