Education

Most of the time, infants with PA have several operations. The first operation is most often the placement of a small tube (shunt) from the aorta or one of its branch vessels to the pulmonary artery branch (MDfied BlalockTaussig Shunt). The shunt is put in to give more blood to the lungs so the infant will have more oxygen-rich blood to the body. The shunt is done through a thoracotomy (side) incision. The shunt maybe placed on the left, right or both sides of the pulmonary artery branch. The shunt(s) will be removed at the time of the corrective operation when no longer needed. The PDA is removed.

The corrective surgery is aiMDat directing the blood from the bottom right chamber of the heart to the branch arteries going to the lungs. The narrowing beneath the pulmonary valve is cut away. A tube is placed in the bottom right heart chamber and sewn into the branch pulmonary arteries. This tube is often a homograft (human tissue vessel) but can also be from man-MD materials. The ventricular septal defect is dosed with a patch or stitches. This surgery is done through a median stemotomy (chest) incision.

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