Aortic coarctation is a congenital narrowing of the descending part of this blood vessel. This disease accounts for 5-10% of all heart defects. There are different types of this defect, and some of them can lead to the death of a child in the first weeks of life in a natural course. The disease is treated with surgical repair. Dozens of types of operations to eliminate the defect have been developed. One of them is subclavian flap plastic repair. You can undergo this procedure abroad. This surgical intervention is highly effective at reputable clinics. The operation can completely eliminate hemodynamic disorders and is characterized by a low risk of recurrent coarctation.
Content
- Diagnostics
- In what cases do doctors perform subclavian flap plastic repair?
- How is the operation performed?
- Where to undergo the operation?
Doctors at hospitals abroad perform surgery even on patients in the first weeks of their lives with a minimal risk of complications. The frequency of recurrent aortic coarctation after surgery in the world is 21%, but at the best Heart Surgery Centers in Europe, this indicator does not exceed 13%.
You can seek medical attention from the University Hospital Essen, University Hospital Oldenburg, or University Hospital Ulm.
The specialists from the Booking Health company will take care of all the arrangements for your treatment abroad. We will select the best Heart Surgery Center abroad with vast experience in performing a subclavian flap aortoplasty procedure and agree on everything with its administration. We will also help you prepare documents, book hotel and airline tickets, and organize your transfer from the airport to the hospital and back.
Diagnostics
Medical imaging techniques are used to diagnose the disease. Most often, it is an ultrasound scan (echocardiography). It helps to detect a defect not only immediately after birth but even at the prenatal stage.
Echocardiography can usually show a stenosed area of the aorta. If the changes are not obvious, doctors can tell that a child has this defect by the following indirect signs: the right ventricle is enlarged, its wall is thickened, the pulmonary artery is enlarged, and the indices of the ratio of the volume of the right ventricle to the left and the pulmonary artery to the aorta are increased.
In complex diagnostic cases, the results are clarified using CT or MRI scans.
In what cases do doctors perform subclavian flap plastic repair?
Aortoplasty is one of the treatment options for aortic coarctation and is aimed at dilating this blood vessel in various ways. The "end-to-end" anastomosis technique has become the most widespread. Doctors remove the narrowed section of the blood vessel and then suture the ends together.
Such an operation, however, is not suitable for patients with hypoplasia (underdevelopment) of the aortic arch. This type of defect is treated with an expanded anastomosis and plastic surgery with a free or inverted flap of the left subclavian artery. As of today, plastic surgery with inverted flaps is more often used.
Subclavian flap aortoplasty for coarctation of the aorta is also used to eliminate repeated coarctation, that is, recurrent narrowing of the blood vessel that has developed after previous surgical treatment.
How is the operation performed?
A subclavian flap aortoplasty procedure is performed to increase the lumen of the aorta and normalize blood access to the systemic circulation. Doctors dissect the left subclavian artery to the aortic isthmus under an occlusive clamp. The length of the segment of the left subclavian artery should be at least 1.5 times its diameter. Surgeons form a flap and use it to close defects in the aortic arch. The flap is sutured to the edges of the defect with a continuous twist suture. Doctors cut out the stenotic area of the aorta. At the final stage, the distal section of the left subclavian artery is reimplanted into the lateral section of the left common carotid artery.
Where to undergo the operation?
You can go abroad to undergo subclavian flap aortoplasty for aortic coarctation. The specialists at the Booking Health company will help you choose a Heart Surgery Center that has vast experience in subclavian flap aortoplasty. On our website, you can find out prices, compare the cost of operations at different hospitals, and choose the right option. Do not hesitate to leave your request on our website to get a consultation. The Booking Health employees will contact you to assist you in arranging your trip. When you make your appointment through our service, the cost of treatment will be lower than when you contact the hospital directly, due to the lack of taxes for foreign patients.
Authors:
The article was edited by medical experts, board-certified doctors Dr. Sergey Pashchenko and Dr. Vadim Zhiliuk. For the treatment of the conditions referred to in the article, you must consult a doctor; the information in the article is not intended for self-medication!
Sources:
National Center for Biotechnology
American Heart Association
European Society of Cardiology
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