Patients with a congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries show an increasing incidence of cardiac failure with age. In other systemic right ventricles, such as in dextro-transposition after atrial switch, excessive hypertrophy is a potential risk factor for impaired systolic function. In this trial, we sought to compare systemic function and volumes between patients with congenitally corrected transposition and those with dextro-transposition after atrial switch by using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.

A total of 19 patients (nine male) with congenitally corrected transposition and 31 patients (21 male) with dextro-transposition after atrial switch were studied using a 1.5-Tesla scanner. Cine steady-state free-precession sequences in standard orientations were acquired for volumetric and functional imaging. Patient parameters were compared with those of a group of 25 healthy volunteers. Although patients with congenitally corrected transposition were older, they presented with higher right ventricular ejection fractions (p = 0.04) compared with patients with dextro-transposition. Patients with congenitally corrected transposition showed a weak negative correlation between age at examination and systemic ejection fraction (r = −0.18, p = 0.04) but no correlation between right ventricular myocardial mass index and ejection fraction. There was no significant difference in the right ventricular end-diastolic volumes between both patient groups.

Although patients with congenitally corrected transposition had a longer pressure load of the systemic right ventricle, ventricular function was better compared with that in patients with dextro-transposition after atrial switch. The results suggest that the systemic ventricles might have partly different physiologies. One difference could be the post-operative situation after atrial switch, which results in impaired atrial contribution to ventricular filling.