Buxton, B. F., and Cooley, D. A. (1973). Thorax, 28, 521-525. Recurrent aortopulmonary artery fistula. The case report is presented of a patient who underwent successful repair of a recurrent fistula between the aorta and the pulmonary artery secondary to an atherosclerotic aneurysm of the ascending thoracic aorta. The fistula was situated between the proximal part of the ascending aorta and th...

The field of pediatric cardiac interventions has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number and type of procedures performed. We review the most common procedures performed in the catheter laboratory. Lesions are divided according to their physiological characteristics into left-to-right shunting lesions (atrial septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus, ventricular septal defect), right-to-left...

It is now well established that the morphology of the ventricular septal defect associated with interrupted aortic arch is such as to compromise blood flow to the ascending aorta. Though there is some evidence that a similar mechanism may be operative in coarctation with ventricular septal defect, we are unaware of any necropsy study of this hypothesis. We therefore studied 25 hearts from the H...

Management of severely dilated pulmonary artery (PA) associated with severe pulmonary hypertension from congenital heart disease remains controversial, primarily due to its rare nature and concern for perioperative unpredictable complications. Herein, we report a 25 year-old female with a severely dilated PA (up to 73 mm), who was successfully treated by a PA graft replacement by creating a Y-s...

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) can provide comprehensive anatomic and physiological information about the cardiovascular system. The review article describes the application of CMR to several simple congenital heart lesions: atrial septal defects and other interatrial communications, ventricular septal defects, patent ductus arteriosus, partially anomalous pulmonary venous connection,...

Many surgical approaches have been taken when closing ventricular septal defects after correcting transposition of the great arteries in order to avoid postoperative complete heart block. We describe a residual ventricular septal shunt that developed after repair using de Leval's method in a patient with congestive heart failure. The defect was closed transaortically without a complete heart bl...

Surgical closure of ventricular septal defect is safe, however, the inherent risks associated with cardiopulmonary bypass and the potential early and late postsurgical complications including complete heart block, arrhythmias, postpericardiotomy syndrome, and rare deaths have led physicians to prefer transcatheter occlusion technique for closure of such defects. The use of Amplatzer muscular ve...

In the Child Chest Clinic of the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals, 300 teenagers (13 through 19 years of age) were questioned as to their smoking habits, and 127 (42 percent) admitted the smoking habit. Among a control group chosen as a random sample from three local high schools and one junior high school in which students are, in general, of a similar socioeconomic background, 32 percent...

BACKGROUND Most non-chromosomal congenital heart defects are thought to be caused by the interaction of genetic factors involving multiple genes and environmental factors. Families that have several affected members have been reported, however, which suggests that a single autosomal dominant or recessive gene may cause the cardiac defects. A family in which atrioventricular septal defect seemed...

A15-year-old girl was referred to our hospital for reevaluation and balloon angioplasty of a previously documented coarctation of the aorta. She had undergone coarctectomy at age 1 week and patch closure of a ventricular septal defect at age 1 year. Three years before referral, she had received balloon angioplasty to relieve postoperative restenosis of the descending aorta; this improved the pr...