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Open in new tab Download slide OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to assess the early outcomes and risk factors of paediatric patients requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation after cardiac surgery (post-cardiotomy). METHODS Retrospective binational cohort study from the Australia and New Zealand Congenital Outcomes Registry for Surgery database. All patients younger than 18 years of age who underwent a paediatric cardiac surgical procedure from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2021 and required post-cardiotomy extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (PC-ECMO) in the same hospital admission were included in the study. RESULTS Of the 12 290 patients included in the study, 376 patients required post-cardiotomy ECMO (3%). Amongst these patients, hospital mortality was 35.6% and two-thirds of patients experienced a major complication. Hypoplastic left heart syndrome was the most common diagnosis (17%). The Norwood procedure and modified Blalock–Taussig shunts had the highest incidence of requiring PC-ECMO (odds ratio of 10 and 6.8 respectively). Predictors of hospital mortality after PC-ECMO included single-ventricle physiology, intracranial haemorrhage and chylothorax. CONCLUSIONS In the current era, one-third of patients who required PC-ECMO after paediatric cardiac surgery in Australia and New Zealand did not survive to hospital discharge. The Norwood procedure and isolated modified Blalock–Taussig shunt had the highest incidence of requiring PC-ECMO. Patients undergoing the Norwood procedure had the highest mortality (48%). Two-thirds of patients on PC-ECMO developed a major complication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open in new tab Download slide OBJECTIVES We aim to develop the first risk prediction model for 30-day mortality for the Australian and New Zealand patient populations and examine whether machine learning (ML) algorithms outperform traditional statistical approaches. METHODS Data from the Australia New Zealand Congenital Outcomes Registry for Surgery, which contains information on every paediatric cardiac surgical encounter in Australian and New Zealand for patients aged <18 years between January 2013 and December 2021, were analysed (n  = 14 343). The outcome was mortality within the 30-day period following a surgical encounter, with ∼30% of the observations randomly selected to be used for validation of the final model. Three different ML methods were used, all of which employed five-fold cross-validation to prevent overfitting, with model performance judged primarily by the area under the receiver operating curve (AUC). RESULTS Among the 14 343 30-day periods, there were 188 deaths (1.3%). In the validation data, the gradient-boosted tree obtained the best performance [AUC = 0.87, 95% confidence interval = (0.82, 0.92); calibration = 0.97, 95% confidence interval = (0.72, 1.27)], outperforming penalized logistic regression and artificial neural networks (AUC of 0.82 and 0.81, respectively). The strongest predictors of mortality in the gradient boosting trees were patient weight, STAT score, age and gender. CONCLUSIONS Our risk prediction model outperformed logistic regression and achieved a level of discrimination comparable to the PRAiS2 and Society of Thoracic Surgery Congenital Heart Surgery Database mortality risk models (both which obtained AUC = 0.86). Non-linear ML methods can be used to construct accurate clinical risk prediction tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Analysis of multi‐institutional data and benchmarking is an accepted accreditation standard in cardiac surgery. Such a database does not exist for congenital cardiac surgery in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). To fill this gap, the ANZ Congenital Outcomes Registry for Surgery (ANZCORS) was established in 2017. Methods: Inclusion criteria included all cardiothoracic and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) procedures performed at five participating centres. Data was collected by data managers, validated by the surgical team, and securely transmitted to a central repository. Results: Between 2015 and 2019, 9723 procedures were performed in 7003 patients. Cardiopulmonary bypass was utilized for 59% and 9% were ECMO procedures. Fifty‐seven percent (n = 5531) of the procedures were performed in children younger than 1 year of age. Twenty‐four percent of procedures (n = 2365) were performed in neonates (≤28 days) and 33% (n = 3166) were performed in children aged 29 days to 1 year (infants). The 30‐day mortality for cardiac cases (n = 6572) was 1.3% and there was no statistical difference between the participating centres (P = 0.491). Sixty‐nine percent of cases had no major post‐operative complications (5121/7456). For cardiopulmonary bypass procedures (n = 5774), median stay in intensive care and hospital was 2 days (IQR 1, 4) and 9 days (IQR 5, 18), respectively. Conclusion: ANZCORS has facilitated pooled data analysis for paediatric cardiac surgery across ANZ for the first time. Overall mortality was low. Non‐risk‐adjusted 30‐day mortality for individual procedures was similar in all units. The continued evaluation of surgical outcomes through ANZCORS will drive quality assessment in paediatric cardiac surgery across ANZ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

View large Download slide View large Download slide OBJECTIVES Long-term data on the impact of pulmonary artery (PA) augmentation in patients who underwent the Fontan procedure are lacking. The aim of this study was to examine whether surgical or transcatheter PA augmentation at or prior to the Fontan procedure adversely affects the outcomes. METHODS Data of 1436 patients from the Australia-New Zealand Fontan Registry (1975–2015) were analysed. Primary end point was death or Fontan failure. Cox regression with propensity score matching was used to determine risk or benefit conferred by PA augmentation. RESULTS Forty-eight (3.3%) patients underwent PA augmentation following cavopulmonary shunt (surgical n  = 14, balloon dilatation n  = 16 and stent n  = 18) and 105 (7.3%) patients underwent PA augmentation at the time of the Fontan procedure (surgical n  = 104, stent n  = 1). Median follow-up was 6.4 years with 10 deaths (6.5%) in the augmentation group and 10.5 years with 95 deaths (7.4%) in the non-augmentation group. The unadjusted Kaplan–Meier, log-rank test and Cox regression analysis demonstrated no significant difference in both end points between the 2 groups [death: hazard ratio (HR) 1.35, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.70–2.60; P  = 0.37 death or failure: HR 1.39, 95% CI 0.83–2.34; P  = 0.21]. The propensity score matching yielded 131 matched pairs, with adequate balance for all covariates (the median residual bias = 0.05). The subsequent Cox regression demonstrated no significant difference in the risks of death (HR 1.30, 95% CI 0.49–3.41; P  = 0.60) and death or Fontan failure (HR 0.92, 95% CI 0.46–1.85; P  = 0.82). CONCLUSIONS PA augmentation prior to or at the Fontan procedure does not confer worse long-term outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Fontan takedown remains an option for the management of Fontan failure. We sought to evaluate early and late outcomes after Fontan takedown., Methods: The Australia and New Zealand Fontan Registry was interrogated to identify all patients who had a Fontan takedown., Results: Over a 43-year study period (1975-2018), 36 of 1540 (2.3%) had a Fontan takedown. The median age at takedown was 5.1 years (interquartile range [IQR], 3.7, 7.0). Nine (25%) patients had a takedown within 48 hours, 6 (16%) between 2 days and 3 weeks, 14 (39%) between 3 weeks and 6 months, whereas 7 (19%) had a late takedown (>6 months). Median interval to takedown was 26 days (IQR, 1.5, 127.5). Sixteen (44%) patients died at a median of 57.5 days (IQR, 21.8, 76.8). The greatest mortality occurred between 3 weeks and 6 months (<2 days: 1/9, 11%; 2 days to 3 weeks: 2/6, 33%; 3 weeks to 6 months: 11/14, 79%; >6 months: 2/7, 28%; P = .007). At median follow-up of 9.4 years (IQR, 4.5, 15.3), 11 (31%) patients were alive with an intermediate circulation (10 in New York Heart Association class I/II). Five (14%) patients underwent a successful second Fontan. Freedom from death/transplant after Fontan takedown was 59%, 56%, and 52% at 1, 5, and 10 years, respectively., Conclusions: The incidence of Fontan takedown is low, but mortality is high. The majority of takedowns occurred within 6 months. Mortality was lowest when takedown occurred <2 days and highest between 3 weeks and 6 months. A second Fontan is possible in a small proportion of survivors., (Crown Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)