1.Hello! My baby is 4 months old and was found to have a mild “atrial septal defect” in his heart. Is interventional therapy available for all congenital heart diseases? Interventional therapy, also known as “surgery without surgery”, is a method of treating heart disease by inserting a catheter through a needle in a blood vessel under the supervision of a medical imaging television system. The biggest benefits of interventional therapy are no incisions, no scars, fast recovery, no “energy” damage, and relatively low surgical risks. Not all precardiac diseases can be treated with intervention. At present, intervention is available for some common and frequent precardiac diseases, such as atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus, pulmonary valve stenosis, etc. If your baby is diagnosed with “congenital heart disease atrial septal defect”, please don’t be anxious, you can observe the mild one, and generally consider interventional treatment for atrial septal defect after 3 years old (the blood vessels are too thin for interventional treatment), but you should review the echocardiogram every six months; if the condition is serious, the diameter of the defect is large, and the enlargement of the heart is obvious, then you should promptly operate. If the condition is serious, the diameter of the defect is large and the enlargement of the heart is obvious, surgery should be performed in time to avoid heart failure. 2.Hello! My baby is 3 years old and she has two defects in her heart, namely “unclosed arterial duct” and “coronary artery fistula”. There should be hope for interventional treatment. “In the case of “unclosed ductus arteriosus”, 99% of interventions should be possible, while in the case of “coronary artery fistula”, the size, location and vascular condition of the fistula should be examined. If the conditions are suitable, interventional treatment can be performed at the same time, if not, surgical procedures should be performed to repair both defects at the same time. If your baby comes to our hospital for a careful examination, we can determine the treatment plan, whether surgical or interventional treatment is reliable. 3.Hello! My baby was just 10 days old and was found to have congenital heart disease. I don’t want my baby to have open surgery, but can interventional treatment be done for such a small baby? First of all, you should find out what kind of congenital heart disease your baby has, and take your baby to a big hospital to have a heart ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis. Common congenital heart diseases include: atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus, pulmonary stenosis, etc. For children with pulmonary valve stenosis, interventions can be done one day after birth; for arteriovenous catheterization, the child needs to be at least 6 months old, while interventions for atrial septal defect and ventricular septal defect require the baby to be at least 2-3 years old, too young for interventions. If the child’s condition is mild, interventional treatment can be observed until about 2-3 years old and then considered. If the condition is severe, immediate surgical operation should be performed to avoid pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. 4.Hello! My baby is 2 months old and the doctor found that the foramen ovale of his heart is not closed, is it possible to do interventional treatment without surgery? When should I start the treatment? Don’t worry, medically “unclosed foramen ovale” is not a congenital heart disease in the strict sense, it exists in about 10-30% of normal people, and generally has no effect on the body, and according to the national regulations, it does not affect the child’s future education and employment. Therefore, your baby is a healthy baby and does not need treatment, including interventional treatment, and open surgery is not necessary. However, clinically, “unclosed foramen ovale” is easily confused with small atrial septal defect, which is about 1-3mm in diameter, while the diameter of small atrial septal defect is about 5-10mm. 5.Hello! My baby is just a month old and was found to have Tetralogy of Fallot, can I have interventional treatment? No. The most common type of complex precardiac disease is Tetralogy of Fallot, which includes ventricular septal defect, pulmonary valve stenosis, aortic span, right ventricular hypertrophy and several other malformations. . 6.What are the advantages of cardiac intervention compared with open surgery? Which one has better treatment effect? Which one has a faster recovery? What is the difference in cost? At present, interventional therapy is a new treatment method for precardiac disease that has emerged with the development of medicine, enabling some patients with precardiac disease to avoid the pain of a knife. Compared with open surgery, the advantages of interventional therapy include less trauma to the human body, no blood transfusion during surgery, no scarring after surgery, quick recovery, no damage to the “vital energy” and relatively low risk of surgery. However, at present, only some of the children with precocious heart disease can undergo interventional treatment, and the possibility of interventional treatment depends on the type of precocious heart disease the child has, the age, and the specific location of the lesion. The scope of surgical procedures is much wider. As far as the treatment effect is concerned, if the surgery is successful, the effect of the two treatment methods is the same, both are radical cure; of course, if we consider the overall effect of trauma, aesthetics, recovery time, etc., interventional treatment is obviously superior. Generally, the doctor will recommend the most suitable treatment method, taking into account the child’s condition and specific circumstances. Interventional treatment is non-invasive, less traumatic, shallow anesthesia, and no blood transfusion, so recovery is fast, and children can generally be discharged from the hospital in 1-3 days after surgery and can participate in normal sports activities 3 months after surgery. Cost-wise the cost of interventional treatment is currently comparable to that of surgery, but if the recovery after surgery is not smooth, the cost of surgical treatment will rise significantly. In general, the doctor will choose the most appropriate treatment for the child’s condition, but of course the parents’ opinion will also play a big role.