From September 20 to 22, 2021 the Congress of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society (PCICS) will take place, in hybrid mode, with the city of San Francisco, California as its headquarters. In this event the research work carried out by Drs. María del Carmen Molina Torres, resident of Pediatric Cardiovascular Anesthesiology; Luis Antonio García Benítez, Orlando Tamariz Cruz and Alexis Palacios Macedo, entitled:“Early extubation of patients with univentricular heart at more than 7500 feet (2300 meters) above sea level”..

This research reports the experience of the ABC-Kardias Program, both in the Santa Fe Campus, located at 2,691 meters, and in the ABC-Kardias Pediatric Heart Center,Observatory Campus, located at 2353 meters above sea level. In both campuses, data from 2014 to 2021 of 95 patients with univentricular heart were analyzed.

The study analyzes the relationship of the possibility that they left the operating room extubated (without the tube used to ventilate the lungs during cardiac surgery). The importance of this study is that we report results similar to those observed in those centers located at sea level, with the benefits that are associated with this practice, but perhaps the most relevant thing is that these patients have been considered not candidates for the palliative surgery of univentricular hearts at that height and, frequently, they are either not operated on or must be transferred to other sites located at a lower geographical altitude.

Likewise, these types of patients are not regularly extubated when leaving the surgery room, and they remain in intensive care units for a long time, with a higher risk of complications, especially infectious lung complications.

This study suggests that the surgery considered “complex” for the palliation of this disease can be performed in centers like ours, with these geographic characteristics, and that the beneficial effects of extubation performed in the operating room or within 24 hours, are it is accompanied by a good success rate and a reduction in complications, especially respiratory complications, as well as a shorter hospital stay.