DMC pediatric heart specialist uses less invasive technique to repair a child's Atrial Septal Defect ("Hole in the heart.")
Mending Young Hearts: Atrial Septal Defect Repair
Isabella acts like a typical five-year old. She enjoys dance, gymnastics, swimming and playing with her brother. But she has a problem you cannot see: a hole in her heart. It must be repaired, before she faces a severely diminished quality of life as an adult.
It began as a heart murmur diagnosed when she was just three months old, and as a result she has spent the rest of her life in regular consultation with a pediatric cardiologist. If it is left untreated, she risks permanent lung failure an enlarged heart and decreased abilities by age 30.
Isabella was born with a congenital condition called atrial septal defect, or ASD. Doctor Dan Turner, a pediatric interventional cardiologist at the Detroit Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital of Michigan, will repair the ASD with an amazing procedure, and he’ll do it without open heart surgery.
Here’s a basic explanation of Isabella’s problem: the human heart has four chambers, two on the right, and two on the left. The chambers on the right pump blood to the lungs to get oxygen. The left chambers pump the oxygenated blood out to the body. Isabella has a hole between the upper right and left chambers, allowing blood that has already been to the lungs to “leak back” into the right chamber, a sort of “backflow” to where it has already been. This reduces the heart’s efficiency, and leads to the respiratory and heart problems later in life.
Isabella’s condition used to require open heart surgery to repair. Now, Dr. Turner will use x-rays and ultrasound to guide a catheter into her heart, and pass a small device into the heart and implant it in the hole. Once it is positioned, the tiny device acts like scaffolding, giving the heart a platform for tissue growth. The lining now has something to attach to, and slowly grows back together, mending the defect.
After the procedure, Isabella and her parents are ecstatic at her progress, and looking forward to a normal, active life for her in the years ahead.
To request an appointment, call 888-DMC-2500.