The Latest Technology to Diagnose and Treat Complex Heart Conditions
Our cardiac catheterization and intervention team performs many diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in our hybrid cath lab.
We use the latest technology to give your child the highest quality, safest care for complex heart conditions. Whenever possible, we combine procedures—often with other specialists—to minimize your child’s time under anesthesia and in surgery.
Diagnostic Procedures
We use diagnostic procedures to get more information about your child’s cardiac blood vessels and heart. These tests provide images of the heart that we cannot see with computed tomography (CT) scans, echocardiography or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Tests include diagnostic cardiac catheterization.
Therapeutic Procedures and Treatments
We can treat damaged heart tissue and valves, and narrow blood vessels without open heart surgery. Cardiac cath lets heart surgeons place devices and perform procedures from inside the heart. A catheter carries tiny devices and tools through a blood vessel in the groin to the repair site in the heart.
Treatments we offer include:
- Aortic angioplasty: Your child’s doctor uses a catheter to widen narrowed sections of the aorta. If needed, a stent is placed in the aorta to hold it open.
- Atrial septal defect closure: We use a procedure called transcatheter device closure. A catheter carries a small device to the atrial septum. We place the device to fill or close the space in the damaged septum.
- Atrial septostomy: Your child’s surgeon uses a catheter to carry a balloon to the foramen ovale, a space that connects the right atrium and the left atrium. We inflate the balloon within this space to stretch and widen the opening.
- Patent ductus arteriosus closure: The surgeon uses a catheter to carry a coil or plug-shaped device to the area of the blood vessel that needs to be blocked.
- Pulmonary angioplasty: We use a catheter to widen narrow arteries and veins. In some cases, we implant a stent to keep the blood vessels open.
- Transcatheter valve implants: We use a catheter during a cardiac catheterization to replace damaged heart valves. This avoids the need for open heart surgery.
- Valvuloplasty: Your child’s doctor uses a catheter to carry a balloon or other device to a narrowed heart valve. We inflate the balloon or place the device to open the heart valve.
- Ventricular septal defect closure: During a cardiac catheterization, we place a device to close an opening in the ventricular septum.
Crossover Procedures
The hybrid cardiac catheterization lab at Cincinnati Children’s allows our interventionists to partner with heart surgeons, heart failure and transplant specialists, pulmonologists and other experts to combine surgical procedures.
Your child can receive catheterization and surgical procedures on the same day while under anesthesia. An example of this would be if your child needs a bronchoscopy and a cardiac catheterization. The pulmonologist can join the cath procedure, so your child only needs anesthesia once.
