Pulmonary Artery Banding in Infants with Cardiac Anomalies Other than Ventricular Septal Defects: including an Evaluation of a New Technic for Determining a Critical Degree of Banding.

S INCE THE ORIGINAL CLINICAL REPORT of Muller and Dammann in 1952,’ the use of pulmonary artery banding in small infants with congestive heart failure due to large ventricular septal defects has been widely recognized and used as a beneficial, palliative procedure of reasonable risk.2’ Only limited clinical information is available concerning the use of banding in the treatment of other types of congenital heart disease associated with low vascular resistance and high pulmonary blood flow.6” Additionally, the immediate determination of the ideal or even an adequate degree of banding at the surgical table continues to be a serious problem in the uniform success of this procedure. During the past four years, we have had experience with pulmonary banding in 14 infants with congenital heart disease other than ventricular septal defect and in ten of these infants have used a technic for pulmonary artery banding in which the end point of constriction was based on changes in pulmonary arterial and systemic arterial oxygen saturation. The results of banding of these infants and an evaluation of the accuracy of arterial saturation as an aid in the determination of a critical degree of banding are the subjects of this report.