In patients undergoing surgical repair of post-infarction ventricular septal defect, does concomitant revascularization improve prognosis?

A best evidence topic in cardiac surgery was written according to a structured protocol. The question addressed was 'In patients undergoing surgical repair of post-infarction ventricular septal defect (VSD), does concomitant revascularization improve prognosis?'. The scientific literature was reviewed by searching Medline, using Ovid interface, from 1950 to April 2009. Four hundred and five papers were found, of which 18 were deemed relevant to the topics. The authors, journal, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, and results of these papers were tabulated. Seven out of 18 papers showed statistical evidence of benefit of concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in patients undergoing surgical repair of VSD. They showed a benefit especially with complete revascularization. Another five papers recommended CABG with VSD even in the absence of statistical evidence. The reported papers showed a mortality benefit from 26.3% without revascularization down to 21.2% with revascularization and an actuarial survival at five years from 29 up to 72%. However, six out of 18 papers did not find any difference. The largest study in this area was by Jeppsson et al. where 119 patients underwent VSD repair with revascularization and 70 underwent VSD repair only, the mortality was 38% vs. 46% (P=0.29). Barker et al. compared a group of 23 patients undergoing repair of VSD only and 42 patients undergoing concomitant CABG. The in-hospital mortality was 39.2% vs. 26.2%, and the four-year survival rate was 33.2% and 88.2%, respectively. Lundblad et al. found that in 66 patients undergoing concomitant CABG out of 102 undergoing repair of VSD, complete revascularization and revascularization of the culprit artery, both resulted in improved 30-day survival and long-term survival. Muehrcke et al. reported on 75 patients undergoing surgical repair of post-infarction VSD. Out of those, 33 (44%) had a concomitant CABG. The authors found that concomitant CABG increases long-term survival when compared with patients with unbypassed coronary artery disease (CAD) (P=0.0015). We conclude that patients undergoing concomitant CABG to all the stenotic coronary arteries, supplying the non-infarcted area, fare better both in improved 30-day survival and long-term survival. The improvement of the collateral flow to the myocardium contributes to its better recovery.