Pediatric Cardiothoracic Program: Big Miracles for Tiny Patients
Pediatric cardiac surgeons at Cedars-Sinai rely on advanced techniques - many of them minimally invasive - to perform increasingly complex heart surgery on small babies. These techniques help improve outcomes with faster healing and less pain.
Cedars-Sinai has been a leader in developing and adopting these newer techniques for infant heart surgery. Since 1988, we have seen a steady increase in referrals for pediatric heart surgery.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was the first in the western United States to perform video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) in the treatment of patients with patent ductus arteriosus and vascular rings. VATS requires a smaller incision resulting in less pain and faster recovery.
Children with complex heart defects (such as children born with a single heart chamber) are treated at Cedars-Sinai with staged reconstructive surgery. By using a series of surgeries, pediatric cardiac surgeons at Cedars-Sinai are able to rebuild the hearts of these tiny infants so that most experience no symptoms by the time they enter grade school.
The program's medical services range from minimally invasive procedures to innovative surgical techniques, including neonatal heart repair, surgical correction of the heart chamber, the Ross Procedure (replacing the aortic valve with the patient's own lung valve), artery repair and heart transplantations.
Among the division's pediatric specialists are perinatologists, neonatologists, medical geneticists and cardiac surgeons, as well as social workers to help patients' families cope with the special challenges of pediatric heart disease.
State-of-the-art surgical procedures are provided by three full-time pediatric heart surgeons and a support staff dedicated to pediatric heart surgery. The treatment and recovery of Cedars-Sinai's smallest heart patients is supported by the medical center's state-of-art neonatal intensive care unit and Pediatric Services at the Ahmanson Pediatric Center at Cedars-Sinai.
