Norwood Procedure
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This was named after Norwood in Philadelphia who devised the operation in the early 1980's. It is usually undertaken for the hypoplastic left heart syndrome. During an open heart procedure the pulmonary artery is detached from the heart above the valve and the end is over sewn. The gap between the valve and the aorta is then bridged by a homograft (valve obtained from a cadaver) allowing blood to pump from the right ventricle into the aorta and not be reliant upon the ductus which can close without warning. The pulmonary blood supply is through a Blalock Taussig shunt or more recently a Gore-tex tube between the right ventricle and pulmonary artery.. The operation takes several hours to perform. Figures for success vary from around 50% to 70%.
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This page was last edited 14/2/2004 |
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