Cardiac Ventricular Contractile Responses to Chronically Increased Afterload Secondary to Right Ventricular Outflow Obstruction in Patients With Tetralogy of Fallot

We examined the adaptive mechanism of the pulmonary ventricle (PV) in response to increased afterload secondary to pulmonary stenosis in tetralogy of Fallot (TOF, n = 47) and congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries (cCTGA, n = 18), where the PV is morphologically different. We also elucidated the effects of such adaptation on systemic ventricular (SV) function. PV contractility, assessed by dp/dtmax, showed significant positive correlations with PV pressure (r = 0.82, p <0.01 for TOF and r = 0.78, p <0.01 for cCTGA) and pulmonary-to-systemic ventricular pressure ratio (r = 0.70, p <0.01 for TOF and r = 0.76, p <0.01 for cCTGA) in patients with both TOF and cCTGA. Notably, the slopes of these correlations were significantly higher in cCTGA than in TOF (p <0.01), suggesting enhanced contractile responses in cCTGA. Moreover, SV dp/dtmax showed significant positive correlations with PV dp/dtmax in patients with both TOF and cCTGA (r = 0.67, p <0.01 and r = 0.61, p <0.01, respectively), indicating positive ventricular-ventricular interaction. In this relationship, the slopes of correlations were significantly higher in TOF than in cCTGA (p = 0.024). These results, indicating different behaviors of PV contractile physiology and its interaction with the SV, may have important therapeutic implications when considering medical, catheter, and surgical interventions for pulmonary stenosis in these diseases. The results may also offer the potential for a new approach for improvement of prognosis, especially in cCTGA.