Endovascular and hybrid surgery

The surgery is performed with the use of local anesthesia under the control of X-ray equipment. The surgeon inserts a catheter directly through the vessels into the heart and produces a plasty of the defect. Depending on the type of the defect, one of the specific intravascular devices is used: it may be a vessel, an occluder or a stent. Thus, in case of an atrial septal defect, the occluder is chosen, it opens like an umbrella in the place of the defect and clogs it, thereby preventing the abnormal discharge of blood from the left atrium to the right one. In the case of the stenosis, however, it is required to increase the pathological narrowing of the heart valve, where an inflatable balloon is actually applied.
To conduct these minimally invasive hybrid surgeries, our CardioCenter has been equipped with the most modern gear in a special new operating theatre. Several doctors with expertise in different areas perform the defects correction under control of at least two methods of research: angiography and echocardiography (X-ray and ultrasound).
Such technologies can be used for young children for closing complex interventricular communication with occluders, in cases when the transluminal access is impossible. Also, these methods are used in the first stage of surgical treatment of a hypoplastic left heart, for stenting hard-to-get-to stenosis of the pulmonary artery and a number of other combined complex congenital heart defects.