S. Shankargouda et al., Dysphonia: A frequently encountered symptom in the evaluation of infants with unobstructed supracardiac total anomalous pulmonary venous connection, PEDIAT CARD, 21(5), 2000, pp. 458-460
Total anomalous pulmonary venous connection is a relatively uncommon congen
ital cardiac anomaly. When there is obstruction to pulmonary venous drainag
e or severe pulmonary hypertension due to increased pulmonary blood flow, t
he patient is usually critically ill and the diagnosis is unambiguous. Howe
ver, in some patients the symptoms may be mild and often overlap with those
of other noncardiac diseases. Tachypnea, failure to thrive, and mild cyano
sis are the most frequently reported symptoms. In our patient population, w
e encountered a frequent observation by parents that the child had an alter
ation in voice which we elected to refer to as dysphonia for the purpose of
this study. We retrospectively reviewed all patients with total anomalous
pulmonary venous connection who were evaluated at our institution from Janu
ary 1996 to January 1999 and found that 27% of patients had dysphonia as a
presenting complaint to their primary care provider. We hypothesize that th
e etiology of this phenomenon lies in the possible compression of the left
recurrent laryngeal nerve in the vicinity of the dilated pulmonary artery a
nd the left vertical vein.