Transient cortical blindness following intracardiac repair of congenital heart disease in an 11-year-old boy

Abstract

Postoperative blindness (PB) primarily involves reception and conductance parts of the visual pathway due to ischemia following cessation of blood supply, for example, retinal vascular occlusion. Although a rare cause of PB, cortical blindness (CB), which results from ischemia/infarction of visual cortex, has a poor outcome due to its mostly nonreversible nature. Ischemic optic neuropathy is the most common cause of PB following cardiac surgeries. CB following cardiac surgeries involving cardiopulmonary bypass has been rarely reported. Only a few of those articles reported partial or complete reversal of CB. We report an incidence of transient CB in an 11-year-old child who was operated for double chambered right ventricle with ventricular septal defect.

Keywords

• Cardiopulmonary bypass
• cortical blindness
• microembolization
• postoperative blindness