Minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass grafting in a 17-year-old patient with left anterior descending coronary artery compression in follow-up after arterial switch operation

Transposition of the great arteries is a congenital heart defect of abnormal arrangement of the aorta and pulmonary artery. In the more frequent dextro transposition of the large arteries (d-TGA), the aorta is connected to the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery to the left ventricle of the heart. Therefore, the pulmonary and the body’s circulation are separate and the disease is not compatible with life, unless other malformations (for example, an atrial septal defect) are present and the ductus arteriosus Botalli is opened (normally until the first days of life) [1].
The neonatal arterial switch operation is the standard of treatment for transposition of the great arteries. During the procedure the aorta and pulmonary artery are detached from their native roots and reattached to the opposite root. After completion of the operation the pulmonary root is called the neo-aorta, and the aortic root the neo-pulmonary artery. It is necessary to transplant the coronary arteries from the aorta/neo-pulmonary artery to the pulmonary artery/neo-aorta [2].
The peri-operative success rate is about 96%, showing a comparable survival rate after 5 years [3]. One of the drawbacks of this procedure is the risk of late coronary stenosis or occlusion, reported as 11.3% in a follow-up of 9.6 years [4] or 7.3% of patients receiving coronary imaging in a meta-analysis of 8798 patients [5]. The first potential manifestation of coronary complications can be sudden cardiac death. To minimize the risk, selective coronary imaging in the follow-up is often performed, despite the low incidence. In the meta-analysis, out of 8798, 27 patients died ≥ 5 years after the arterial switch operation. Of these patients, 10 had relevant coronary lesions. Five late deaths were sudden, possibly from a cardiac cause [5]. Instead of low sudden cardiac death risk, in patients with significant stenosis surgical revascularization should be considered.
We present a case of a 17-year-old boy with transposition of the great arteries (TGA). He underwent anatomical correction surgery in his first week of life. In the last months he presented signs of myocardial ischemia. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed ischemia of the anterior left ventricular wall. Cardiac computed tomography (CT, retrospective ECG-gated study with dual source computed tomography Somatom Force, Siemens, Germany using 35 ml contrast medium) and coronary angiography diagnosed compression of the proximal...


View full text...