Ultrasound-guided precordial occlusion

  There are two main ways to perform conventional congenital heart disease surgery, one is open-chest or axillary incision surgery, which has a large incision that affects the aesthetics, especially to rely on extracorporeal circulation during the procedure, and there is a risk of complications in the brain, kidneys and other important organs. The other modality is cardiac interventional surgery, in which heart disease is diagnosed and treated through specific cardiac catheter manipulation techniques from large blood vessels in the legs under continuous projection of digital subtraction. Because x-ray guidance is required, physicians and patients are exposed to radiation damage.  In contrast, transthoracic ultrasound-guided precordial occlusion involves the insertion of an ultrasound probe in the esophagus to collect the ultrasound signal of the heart, followed by a 1 cm incision at the left or right edge of the chest under the guidance of cardiac ultrasound to seal the defect or dilate the stenosis via the pulmonary artery or the right atrium. During the whole procedure, the heart does not stop beating and no extracorporeal circulation has to be established, which can be done in ten minutes. This new technique can be used for the treatment of heart diseases such as atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus, pulmonary valve stenosis, mitral valve stenosis, etc.  Transthoracic ultrasound-guided precordial occlusion has five major advantages: 1. Small incision, the original median incision and lateral incision are more than 6cm in length, while the incision of this technique is only 1cm. 2. Avoiding the destruction of blood cells and serious complications of brain, kidney and other organs that may be caused by the establishment of extracorporeal circulation in the original conventional surgery.  3.Carried out completely under color ultrasound, ultrasound has almost no damage to human body, avoiding the damage such as blood cell reduction that may be caused by X-rays during interventional surgery, and also avoiding the occurrence of contrast nephropathy.  4.Short operation time, ICU monitoring and hospitalization time, etc. are greatly shortened; fast recovery, generally 3 days after the operation can be discharged, saving medical costs.  5.The operation time is advanced, children with precocious heart disease above 3 months old who meet the indications can be operated, while cardiac interventions are generally operated only after 5 years old.