University of Virginia Health System

U.VA. CARDIOLOGIST REPAIRS HEART DEFECTS WITH A NEW AND GENTLER APPROACH

No matter how necessary, surgery can be a difficult experience for a child - especially an active child like 12-year-old Julie Tuning of Staunton, Virginia. So when her parents learned that she needed surgery to repair an atrial septal defect (ASD) or a hole in her heart, they chose to let her have a procedure that is less invasive than open-heart surgery. Approved by the FDA in 2002, the Amplatzer Atrial Septal Occluder is making the task of repairing congenital heart defects easier for children to handle. This device is now being used at the University of Virginia Health System.

"We thread a thin tube from her leg all the way up to her heart. Once up there, we put out a patch, the Amplatzer, which then closes off the hole," said Dr. Scott Lim, interventional pediatric cardiologist at U.Va. Health System. "When we're all done we put a large version of a band-aid on the leg and that's about it."

The tube that is used measures between 2 and 4 millimeters in diameter, which is as large as the hole in the leg needs to be. This is an outpatient procedure and costs $7,000 on average. Open-heart surgery to repair conditions like Tuning's requires three to five days in the hospital, a chest incision with a chest tube and costs a little more than $15,000 on average. In light of the comparisons, deciding which procedure to have was not hard for Tuning who looks forward to taking on new sports and getting back to 7th-grade English.

"I might not get as tired as easily as I have been which would be a good thing," Tuning said.

March 7, 2003