DIRECT VISION INTRACARDIAC SURGICAL CORRECTION OF CONGENITAL HEART DEFECTS

Abstract
This exhibit describes three different methods developed in our experimental laboratory and successfully applied in man for total by-pass of the heart and lungs to allow direct vision intracardiac surgical correction of congenital or acquired heart defects which heretofore were either not operable or subject to palliative procedures only. These methods are (1) controlled cross circulation, (2) heterologous lung oxygenator, and (3) continuous arterial perfusion from a reservoir of oxygenated blood. The following types of congenital cardiac malformations—ventricular septal defects, atrioventricularis communis, isolated infundibular pulmonic stenosis, and tetralogy of Fallot—have been successfully treated by direct vision intracardiac correction of the anatomic defect or defects present, thereby restoring the circulation to normal. THE METHODS IN MAN Controlled Cross Circulation Figure 1 illustrates diagrammatically the method of linking together the circulatory systems of the patient and the donor for the reciprocal exchange of arterial and venous blood, permitting the heart and lungs