Adults with CHD often exhibit complex cardiac abnormalities, whose management requires specific clinical and surgical expertise. To enable easier access of these patients to highly specialised care, we implemented a collaborative programme that incorporates medical and surgical specialists belonging to both paediatric and adult cardiovascular institutions.

The objective of this study was to review the experience gained and to analyse the surgical outcome of major cardiac surgery.

We retrospectively reviewed all consecutive patients admitted for major cardiac surgery using our network between January, 2010 and December, 2013. Analysis of surgical outcome was performed in patients selected for major cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. Early and late outcomes were evaluated.

Out of a total of 433 inward patients, 86 were selected for surgery. The median age was 25.5 years, –64 patients (74.4%) had previously undergone heart surgery, and –55 patients (64%) had been subjected to at least one sternotomy. Abnormalities of the left ventricular and right ventricular outflow tract were the most frequent (37.2% and 30.2%, respectively), and despite high-surgical complexity only one death occurred (in-hospital mortality 1.1%). On a median follow-up time of 4 years no deaths and no heart-failure events have occurred; one patient underwent further cardiac surgery programmed at the time of discharge.

Low mortality and morbidity rates can be obtained in high-surgical complexity adults with CHD populations when paediatric and adult cardiac specialists operate in the same multidisciplinary environment.