ReviewAmerican journal of cardiovascular disease2026
Long-term survival and complications of Fontan patients: where do we stand?
Review in American journal of cardiovascular disease, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Single ventricle disease (SVD) is a rare but severe form of congenital heart disease (CHD) which requires surgical palliation through the Fontan procedure. This operation, which was pioneered in 1971, has become the final part of a surgical pathway after the Norwood and Glenn procedures. The pathway aims to reduce the load on the functional ventricle whilst improving systemic blood oxygenation. Advances in surgical technique and the modern era have shifted the approach from addressing mortality concerns to offering a lifeline to patients in need. With improved survival, the Fontan population grows which requires an emphasis on the lifelong complications that these individuals face along with specific risk factors that predispose them to these issues allowing for risk stratification and systematic monitoring. This narrative review aims to summarize the recent cohort studies on Fontan patients to identify long-term outcomes of the procedure along with their associated risk factors. The literature review was conducted till December 2025 using PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar, the procedure itself is not curative. I has numerous morbidities including arrhythmia, heart failure, neurocognitive delays, protein-losing enteropathy, renal dysfunction, and Fontan-associated liver disease (FALD). FALD specifically may affect over half of Fontan patients within 35 years and the seriousness of FALD sequelae including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma underscores the need to prioritize early and systematic monitoring. Preoperatively, demographic, surgical, and biomarker risk factors have been shown to be predictors of postoperative complications/mortality. Overall, Fontan patients tend to have excellent survival rates over both the short and long terms compared to prior surgical eras. As postoperative concerns now shift from early mortality to long-term complications, our healthcare system must adapt to ensure lifelong follow-up and a systematic approach for early detection.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.