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2006 Annual Report:
The Children’s Hospital Heart Institute
The Heart Institute is Nationally Renowned
The Children’s Hospital Heart Institute is a leader in pediatric
cardiac care. Widely recognized for academic and clinical
excellence, it is one of the fastest-growing pediatric cardiac
programs in the country.
The Heart Institute
Michael Schaffer, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, in the Cardiac Catheterization
Laboratory at The Children’s Hospital, 2005
The Heart Institute was established to deliver a multidisciplinary
approach to pediatric cardiac care, with the goal of
rehabilitation to a normal lifestyle for patients with congenital
and acquired heart disease. Pediatric cardiologists and cardiothoracic
surgeons work with expert teams of specialists, using
state-of-the-art facilities and techniques, to provide a full
spectrum of pediatric specialty clinics and services.
D. Dunbar Ivy, MD, head of pediatric cardiology, directs a
team of outstanding cardiologists and one of only two pediatric
pulmonary hypertension programs in the nation providing
comprehensive medical care. The Pulmonary Hypertension
Program was initiated and established by the Pediatric Heart Lung Center (PHLC) prior to the launch of the Heart Institute
and represents an interdisciplinary collaboration between the
PHLC and the Heart Institute. “Ours is a nationally renowned
program, which is both diagnostic and therapeutic,” Dr. Ivy said.
“When patients are referred to us, they receive care from one
of the most experienced pediatric cardiac teams in the nation.”
Research efforts are designed to promote the most effective
treatments for complex heart problems. One example is a
major basic research initiative to understand the remodeling
of pulmonary arteries in response to abnormal pressures and
new ways of treating these high pressures. This laboratory
research is conducted in collaboration with a large clinical
program to test new drugs for children with pulmonary
hypertension. Additional ongoing studies evaluate the impact
of various heart surgeries on long-term outcomes and ways
to improve diagnostic catheterizations. Other major research
efforts aim to understand circulation using computer modeling
and in vitro mock-up systems; and both basic and applied
studies are conducted on techniques and devices to repair heart
defects without surgery. Additionally, in collaboration with
the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, research
in transplant biology has found new avenues of manipulation
for the immune system that have markedly reduced the amount
of rejection of the transplanted heart.
François Lacour-Gayet, MD, head of pediatric cardiothoracic
surgery, is a world-renowned surgeon. An expert in the repair of complex congenital heart lesions in neonates,
Dr. Lacour-Gayet is a pioneer in the Arterial Switch procedure
and is internationally recognized for his experience with aortic
arch obstruction and repairs of the double outlet right ventricle.
He has introduced new minimally invasive surgical techniques,
performing open-heart surgery through a posterior thoracotomy
method that minimizes visible scarring. He is also one
of the world’s leading surgeons in the Norwood procedure,
which is now the primary approach to hypoplastic left heart.
Looking to the future, Dr. Lacour-Gayet outlines some of
the latest trends in treating congenital heart disease: “While
some procedures necessarily are staged, we are moving more
to one-time repair surgeries in which multiple defects are
addressed. Many children are slow to thrive between staged
procedures. A single operation can substantially promote a
child’s growth and development,” he said.
Another significant success is the Aristotle Score, a scoring
tool for assessing the complexity of cardiac surgery that was
developed by an international group of experts under the
leadership of Dr. Lacour-Gayet. The Aristotle Score provides
a numerical representation of the complexity of a congenital
heart surgery procedure, based on projected mortality, morbidity
and estimated surgical difficulty, and offers a quantitative
basis for the evaluation of performance. Efforts are underway
to validate the scoring tool based on outcome data.
Our nationally and internationally renowned cardiac care
teams, state-of-the-art technologies and leading-edge research
place the Heart Institute at the forefront of pediatric cardiac
care in the nation.
For more information, please visit the following:
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