Vol 82, No 2 (2024)
Letter to the Editor
Published online: 2023-12-01

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Current practice of care for adolescent and adult patients after Fontan surgery in Poland: Heart transplantation

Jacek Białkowski1Piotr Przybyłowski2Tomasz Hrapkowicz3Szymon Pawlak4
1Consultant of Pediatric Cardiology and 2nd Cardiology Department, Silesian Center for Heart Disease, Zabrze, Poland
2Director of Silesian Center for Heart Diseases, Zabrze, Poland
3Chief of Cardiac Surgery, Transplantology and Vascular Surgery Department, Silesian Center for Heart Diseases, Zabrze, Poland
4Chief of Cardiac Surgery, Transplantology and Circulatory Mechanical Support in Children, Silesian Center for Heart Disease, Zabrze, Poland

Correspondence to:

Prof. Jacek Białkowski, MD, PhD,

2nd Cardiology Department,

Silesian Center for Heart Disease,

Curie-Skłodowskiej 9, 41–800 Zabrze, Poland,

phone: +48 606 488 475,

e-mail: jacek.bialkowski@gmail.com

Copyright by the Author(s), 2024

DOI: 10.33963/v.kp.98383

Received: November 29, 2023

Accepted: November 30, 2023

Early publication date: December 1, 2023

We have read with great interest the article “Current practice of care for adolescent and adult patients after Fontan surgery in Poland” by Ewa Warchoł-Celińska et al. [1] along with the connected Editorial article by Clift et al. [2]. It is very good to know that an attempt to unify the care of the patients after Fontan surgery has been made in our country. The number of included patients was quite large 398, taking into consideration that only 6 cardiological centers from Poland participated in the survey. In the records of the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic (not including the Adult Outpatient Clinic) of the Silesian Center of Cardiology Diseases in Zabrze (Poland), there have been 262 patients with single ventricles registered from 2008, and 30 of them had Fontan operation. In the latter group, over time, a significant number of complication occurs, including impairment of ventricular function and heart failure, regurgitation of the atrioventricular valves, protein-losing enteropathy, hepatic failure, progressive cyanosis, thromboembolic complications, development of vascular fistulas in the lung, arrhythmias, etc. Currently, the ultimate treatment for failed Fontan circulation is cardiac transplantation, which is a very complex procedure per se, with very promising results when successful [3]. Clift et al. [2] stated that all specialized centers treating patients after Fontan operation should have a relationship with a cardiac transplant center to be able to assess patients for possible cardiac transplantation. In our Center, to date, 8 such procedures have been performed by dr Szymon Pawlak (publication in preparation).

Article information

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Funding: None.

Open access: This article is available in open access under Creative Common Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, which allows downloading and sharing articles with others as long as they credit the authors and the publisher, but without permission to change them in any way or use them commercially. For commercial use, please contact the journal office at polishheart journal@ptkardio.pl

REFERENCES

  1. Warchoł-Celińska E, Mazurek-Kula A, Gladysz-Piestrzynska P, et al. Current practice of care for adolescent and adult patients after Fontan surgery in Poland. Kardiol Pol. 2023; 81(10): 960968, doi: 10.33963/KP.a2023.0178, indexed in Pubmed: 37537911.
  2. Clift P, Cowie L, Douglas S. A need for a unified approach to the univentricular circulation: Current practice of care for adolescent and adult patients after Fontan surgery in Poland. Kardiol Pol. 2023; 81(10): 939941, doi: 10.33963/v.kp.97816, indexed in Pubmed: 37823757.
  3. Konstantinov I, Schulz A, Buratto E. Heart transplantation after Fontan operation. JTCVS Tech. 2022; 13: 182191, doi: 10.1016/j.xjtc.2022.01.020., indexed in Pubmed: 35713585.