Influence of percutaneous catheter intervention for congenital perimembranous ventricular septal defects in children on the cardiac conduction system and associated risk factors: a meta-analysis

Background The aim of this study was to investigate adverse outcomes and risk factors for the cardiac conduction system in children with perimembranous ventricular septal defects (pmVSDs) who had been treated by catheter intervention. Method PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were searched for studies in English on interventional treatment of pmVSDs in pediatric patients published up to the end of October 15, 2020. We used random- or fixed-effect models to obtain pooled estimates of the success rate and postoperative complications. Results A total of 1650 pediatric patients from 8 publications were included, with a mean age ranging from 3.44 to 8.67 years old. The pooled estimate of successful implantation was 98.2% (95% CI 97.1–99.4%, I2 = 69.4%; P < 0.001), and the incidence of cardiac conduction system complications was 17.4% (95% CI 8.4–26.4%, I2 = 96.1%; P < 0.001), among which the incidence of heart block was 14.8% (95% CI 6.4–23.3%, I2 = 96.9%; P = 0.001). The incidence of impulse formation disorders was 4.1% (95% CI 0.7–7.6%, I2 = 91.7%; P = 0.019), and the incidence of complete atrioventricular block was 0.8% (95% CI 0.3–13%, I2 = 0.0%; P = 0.001). Risk factors for newly emerging arrhythmias included the VSD size MD = 0.89 (95% CI 0.46–1.32, I2 = 0%; P < 0.0001) and device size MD = 1.26 (95% CI 0.78–1.73, I2 = 0%; P < 0.00001). Conclusions Percutaneous catheter intervention is safe and effective in treating pediatric patients with pmVSD, and the risk factors leading to arrhythmias include the sizes of the pmVSD and device.