Arterial Duct Stenting in Duct-Dependent Pulmonary Circulation: is Surgical Shunt Still Worthwhile?-Juniper Publishers
JUNIPER PUBLISHERS-OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL OF CARDIOLOGY & CARDIOVASCULAR THERAPY Introduction It has long been realized that patients with congenital heart malformations resulting in duct-dependent pulmonary circulation would greatly benefit from stabilized pulmonary blood flow in view of spontaneous improvement or later lower-risk surgical repair. Although this aim may be achieved for a short period by continuous intravenous prostaglandin E infusion, a longer time stable pulmonary blood flow source must be provided in the vast majority of cases. Over time, different surgical systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt techniques were proposed [1-4], with the main advantage of providing significant pulmonary blood flow increase for long time. However, size and angulations of the prosthetic conduit used to make either Blalock-Taussig or “central” shunts often resulted in pulmonary artery distortion and hypertension [5,6]. Maintaining arterial duct patency has long been p...