Potts Shunt in Patients with Pulmonary Hypertension

Abstract

To the Editor: Pulmonary hypertension is a rare complication of transposition of the great arteries.1 As in other forms of primary pulmonary hypertension, the prognosis is poor, particularly in children who have symptoms.2 Converting normal cardiac physiological features to features typical of Eisenmenger's syndrome by means of blade atrial septostomy has already been proposed for patients with this condition.3 But patients with severe right heart failure and markedly elevated pulmonary vascular resistance do not tolerate atrial septostomy, because massive right-to-left shunting may result in insufficient pulmonary blood flow and severe hypoxemia. Therefore, in the cases of two boys who had . . .