We use leading-edge diagnostic tools, surgical procedures, and therapies to provide the best possible treatment of your congenital heart disease.
Working in close collaboration with a dedicated team of adult congenital cardiologists and consultants, we develop highly individualized care plans. These plans take into account the unique characteristics of each patient, and they take full advantage of innovative surgical treatments and technologies that are unique to our program. They include:
- A program-wide focus on performing heart valve repair (such as aortic valve bicuspidization, repair of AV valves after prior complete AV canal deficit, or CAVC, repair) to minimize repeat operations, procedures, and the need for blood thinners.
- Boston Children’s Complex Biventricular Repair Program that allows many patients with complex anatomy to achieve the benefits of two ventricles, even if they have been treated as a single-ventricle patient in the past.
- State-of-the-art three- and four-dimensional imaging, including echocardiography and computed tomography and image-modeling techniques, allow us to diagnose anatomic defects with exceptionally detailed perspectives of the heart.
- Computational flow dynamics analysis of Fontan circulation helps provide balanced circulation for adult patients needing revision surgery to correct a previous procedure.
- Hybrid procedures, which involve a combination of surgery and catheter-based intervention to shorten and improve recovery.
- Minimally invasive cardiac surgery, including valve operations and redo operations that can improve the quality of recovery and minimize surgical scars.
- The Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Program, which helps shorten recovery and a return to normal activities, while improving comfort and decreasing pain.
- SPY-PHITM Laser Angiography allows our surgeons to visualize the location of difficult-to-identify coronary arteries during surgery in real time to avoid injury when covered by scar tissue.
- Real-time visualization of the heart’s conduction system using technology that decreases the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and pacemakers after surgery.
- Thoracoscopic-assisted redo sternotomy using the ENDOEYETM videoscope increases the safety of performing redo chest operations in patients with scar tissue from multiple prior operations.