conclusions our case highlights the fact that the tip of the pulmonary artery catheter can easily advance into a peripheral branch of the pulmonary artery and cause pulmonary venous blood to be sampled instead of pulmonary arterial blood. a variety of monitoring techniques are needed to confirm accurate catheter placement. background pressure and waveform at the catheter tip are continuously mo...

BACKGROUND In right ventricular failure (RVF), an interatrial shunt can relieve symptoms of severe pulmonary hypertension by reducing right ventricular preload and increasing systemic flow. Using a pig model to determine if a pulmonary artery-left atrium shunt (PA-LA) is better than a right atrial-left atrial shunt (RA-LA), we compared the hemodynamic effects and blood gases between the two shu...

OBJECTIVES We propose a new strategy using coarctation repair together with a polidioxanone absorbable pulmonary artery banding to limit operative risk and to spare infants with aortic coarctation subsequent operations. BACKGROUND The alternative for the surgical management of aortic coarctation associated with ventricular septal defect (VSD) is single-stage repair versus coarctation repair w...

An atrial septal defect was successfully repaired in a young woman despite the presence of pulmonary hypertension and right to left shunting. Before repair both isoprenaline infusion and 100% inspired oxygen produced significant falls in pulmonary artery pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance. A lung biopsy specimen at operation indicated a considerable decrease in the concentration of pare...

Each year approximately 2000 children are born with a form of congenital heart disease that would benefit from mechanical restriction, or banding, of the pulmonary artery. [1,2] Installing or changing the setup of the banding requires an open chest surgery and during the first 6 months of the patient’s life, physiological parameters evolve rapidly, resulting in need for frequent reoperations. M...