Inflammatory reactions following homograft insertion in children with congenital heart disease

A study was carried out to assess significant short-term postoperative complications in children undergoing valved homograft surgery for congenital heart defects. Clinical and laboratory parameters of 50 patients undergoing this type of surgery were compared with those of 50 randomly selected but age-matched controls in whom open-heart surgery was performed without a homograft. Extracorporeal circulation, aortic clamping and intensive care times and the duration of febrile response were significantly longer in the study patients than in the controls (each p < 0.0001). In laboratory data the only significant difference between the two groups was in the C-reactive protein response, which was high in the study group (p < 0.0004) and did not correlate with extracorporeal circulation time or with positive blood cultures. The prolonged febrile and acute-phase reactant response following valved homograft surgery is an inflammatory reaction to the foreign antigen.