PURPOSE Evaluation of the role of transesophageal echocardiography in percutaneous closure of atrial septal defects (ASD) with the Amplatzer septal occluder. METHODS Patients were selected for percutaneous closure of ASD by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE), which was also used to monitor the procedure, helping to select the appropriate size of the Amplatzer device, to verify its positio...

OBJECTIVES Occlutech Figulla ASD Occluder (FSO) is an alternative device to Amplatzer Septal Occluder (ASO) with some structural innovations including increased flexibility, minimizing the amount of material implanted, and absence of the left atrial clamp. We aimed to report our experiences with FSO and compare the outcomes of this novel device versus ASO. INTERVENTIONS Between December 2005 ...

The Amplatzer septal occluder (ASO) has become the device of choice for interventional closure of atrial septal defects (ASDs) in many institutions during the last decades. Although excellent results have been reported for the device, concerns have arisen about the long-term complications (1). Of these complications, thrombus formation was rarely seen after 1 year in patients (2–4). This is the...

Case: A 36 year-old woman without significant past medical history was admitted with left-sided hemiparesis. Imaging studies confirmed a right middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke with normal carotid arteries. Transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE) showed right heart enlargement and a large secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) (Figure 1). Using TEE guidance, an ASD occluder device was placed withou...

OBJECTIVES Transcatheter closure of a secundum atrial septal defect (ASD II) has become an effective alternative for surgical treatment. In this study we evaluated the correlation between the two-dimensional transoesophageal echocardiographic (2D TEE) sizing of ASDs and the actual diameter of occluders in patients undergoing device closure. METHODS The records of 54 patients who underwent tra...

Six months after undergoing a Fontan operation, a 7-year-old boy with right atrial isomerism and a single functional ventricle was admitted to our emergency department with cyanosis. Emergency cardiac catheterization revealed a large veno-venous fistula that began in a left hepatic vein, connected to the left accessory hepatic veins, and drained into the common atrium, resulting in desaturation...

Figure 1: The pointed end of delivery cable was quite far cephalad from delivery sheath just after the release of the atrial septal defect occluder. (A and B) The cephalad ends of delivery sheath and delivery cable respectively This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak,...

BACKGROUND Use of the Amplatzer septal occluder (ASO) for the closure of secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) has recently become the procedure of choice, while earlier the only treatment for ASD was surgical closure. This study compares the right ventricular indices of the ASO group with the surgical closure group one year after intervention in adults. METHODS From January 2008 to February 20...

OBJECTIVES Amplatzer septal occluder (ASO)-associated cardiac perforation (CP) at our institution prompted this retrospective review. BACKGROUND Cardiac perforation is a rare complication after transcatheter atrial septal defect (ASD) closure. METHODS To identify CP after transcatheter ASD closure with ASO, cardiac events (CE) describing definite CP, hemopericardium, pericardial effusion, c...