Coronary artery fistula: association between pathway patterns, clinical features and congenital heart disease

Background: Coronary artery fistula (CAF) is a direct connection of one or more coronary arteries to cardiac chambers or a large vessel; it may be associated with congenital heart disease. Objective: To establish CAF pathway patterns from echocardiographic data and to correlate them with clinical aspects and congenital heart disease. Methods: A total of 7.183 medical records of children under the age of five years with cardiac disease submitted to color Doppler echocardiography and Spearman's Correlation test were used to associate signs and symptoms and cardiopathy to CAF with a significance level of 5%. Results: Twenty six children (0.0036%) presented CAF: from the right coronary artery (RCA) to the right ventricle (RV) 26.92%, from the left coronary artery (LCA) to the RV 23.08%, from the anterior interventricular branch (AIVB) to RV 23.08%, RCA to right atrium (RA) 11.54%, LCA for pulmonary trunk (PT) 7.69% or AIVB for PT 7.69%. In 57.69% of the patients, there was a positively correlated symptomatology to CAF with p=0.445 related to dyspnea or cyanosis (53.84%); in 96.15%, congenital heart disease associated with CAF, mainly interventricular communication (IVC) or interatrial communication (IAC) in 34.62% positively correlated to CAF with p=0.295. CAF pathway was represented in three dimensions by software modeling, texturing and animation Cinema 4D R19. Conclusion: CAF is an uncommon anatomical entity that presents a clinical picture compatible with dyspnea and cyanosis, and this is associated with congenital heart disease, mainly with IVC or IAC. According to echocardiographic analyzes, fistulas in RCA, LCA, or AIVB represent about one-third of the patients, with a priority pathway for right heart chambers. (author)