Echocardiographic Evaluation of Postoperative Patient with Tetralogy of Fallot: A Step-Wise Approach

As tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) is the most common cyanotic congenital heart disease, with the advancements in cardiac surgical techniques, there has been an ever-increasing number of postoperated patients with this condition. TOF repair is denoted as “total correction,” however, many hemodynamic and electrophysiologic sequelae remain or come into picture over time, which need to be tackled for the improvement of quality of life and life expectancy. Therefore, regular life-long follow-up is required after TOF surgery. During follow-up visits, only clinical assessment does not suffice, and various investigations are employed from time to time. These include electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, computed tomogram angiography, perfusion scanning, cardiac catheterization, and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. Echocardiography nevertheless, is the easiest, quickest, noninvasive and overall, the most informative investigation. In this review, step-by-step echocardiographic evaluation of a postoperated TOF patient is described.