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PEDIATRIC CARDIOVASCULAR SURGERY

What is pediatric CVS?

Pediatric cardiovascular surgery is a discipline that performs surgical operations to treat congenital and acquired diseases of heart and blood vessels in adulthood and adolescence.


What are the departments that are cooperated with?

Pediatric cardiovascular surgery cooperates with all departments that deal with diseases of childhood, especially including Pediatric Cardiology and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.


What are the cardiovascular diseases that develop in childhood?

Pediatric cardiovascular surgery primarily focuses on pathologies of heart in childhood. Vascular pathologies are rare in patients of this age range. All congenital abnormalities of heart and great blood vessels form the target population of pediatric cardiovascular surgery. These pathologies cover a very wide spectrum, ranging from holes between cardiac chambers to abnormal positions of blood vessels originating from heart and stenosis at any location of the blood circulation.


What are symptoms of these diseases?

Diseases of heart may lead to a symptom at any period of the childhood. Common symptoms of these disease include cyanosis (bluish discoloration of the skin and mucous membranes) in distal ends of hands and feet, lips and mucous membranes, fatigue, inability to exercise, poor or no nutrition, high respiratory rate, rhythm disorders and various murmurs in thoracic cavity. 
 

What are diagnosis and treatment methods?

These diseases can be easily diagnosed with echocardiographic examinations, but angiography, computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging will also offer a means for detailed evaluation.  Surgical correction is the treatment of structural abnormalities that are diagnosed with above mentioned methods.
 

Which surgeries are performed?

Pediatric cardiovascular surgery unit mostly perform cardiac surgeries. Those surgeries are carried out in patients, ranging from newborn infants to adolescents, with a recently diagnosed abnormality or in patients, who are followed up for sequential surgeries. In addition, this group of patients includes adults with congenital heart anomalies.  These procedures cover a very wide spectrum, ranging from low-risk ones, such as atrial septal defect and ventricular septal defect, to high-risk operations, such as hypoplastic left heart and single ventricle palliations.  


Which tests are performed throughout the treatment?

Imaging studies are mostly used in treatment process. In addition, blood and urine tests can be ordered for preoperative preparation and postoperative follow-up, while all tests that can be ordered by physicians of all other departments are available in our clinic.
 

May children resume a normal life following cardiovascular surgeries?

Considering cardiac surgeries, we primarily intend to heal the preoperative condition and these children may have a normal or almost normal life after these operations.
 

What is the most common congenital heart disease?

The most common congenital heart disease is atrial septal defect and ventricular septal defect that fall into group of acyanotic (not associated with bluish discoloration of skin) congenital heart disease. On the other hand, Tetralogy of Fallot is the most common cardiac anomaly in the group of cyanotic diseases.