Neuromonitoring and followup in patients with congenital heart disease in Spain

Introduction: There is evidence of the high incidence of neurological abnormalities in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). Despite this, perioperative neuromonitoring strategies and long-term followup protocols are not standardized in Spain. Objective: The aim of our study was to describe current clinical practice in neuromonitoring, neuroimaging and neurodevelopmental followup in patients with CHD in Spanish hospitals that perform paediatric cardiac surgery (PCS). Material and method: We conducted a survey by adapting a questionnaire originally developed by the European Association Brain and Congenital Heart Disease Consortium to collect data on aspects such as the implementation of perioperative neuromonitoring and the type of neuroimaging techniques and neurological followup performed. The questionnaire was distributed to the 19 Spanish hospitals that perform PCS. Results: We received responses from 17 centres. Eighty-eight percent performed some type of preoperative neuroimaging and 81% postoperative monitoring. The most widely used technique was transfontanellar sonography. Fifty-six percent of the centres used some form of intraoperative neuromonitoring, most frequently near-infrared spectroscopy. Nineteen percent had an established protocol for the followup of these patients and 13% were in the process of developing it. Conclusions: There is considerable heterogeneity in neuromonitoring, neuroimaging and neurologic followup practices in the management of patients with CHD in hospitals that perform PCS in Spain. These findings highlight the need to pursue a consensus in order to standardise neuromonitoring and neurologic followup strategies in children with CHD in Spain. (c) 2024 Asociacio<acute accent>n Espanola de Pediatr<acute accent>& imath;a. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/).