Earliest hybrid HLHS heart surgery kids thrive 5 years later
Five years ago, Cayden was born 6 weeks early weighing less than four pounds and at risk of dying from her critical congenital heart disease. Today, she’s a happy five-year-old who is excited to start kindergarten this fall.
Five years ago, Cayden was born 6 weeks early weighing less than four pounds and at risk of dying from her critical congenital heart disease. Today, she’s a happy five-year-old who is excited to start kindergarten this fall.
Early diagnosis of her hypoplastic right ventricle, double inlet left ventricle and critical coarctation of the aorta allowed for the team at Children’s National Hospital to create a careful plan for safe delivery and to offer an innovative hybrid HLHS surgical approach at the hospital within 24 hours after she was born.
“Truly in my own heart, I do not believe Cayden would be alive today without Dr. Yerebakan and those early hybrid procedures,” says her mom, Casey.
Can Yerebakan, M.D., associate chief of Cardiac Surgery, and Joshua Kanter, M.D., director of Interventional Cardiology, have performed more of these hybrid procedures together at Children’s National than just about anywhere else in the United States. And they are the only team in the country using a special toothpick-sized flexible stent in the ductus. They worked directly with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to bring these right-sized tiny stents to the U.S. from Europe.
Cayden was one of the first babies to benefit from this cutting-edge approach. In the five-plus years since then, more than 50 high-risk babies, some born as early as 28 weeks of gestation or weighing as little as 2 pounds at birth, have also benefited from hybrid procedures. Soon, the team will start performing hybrid procedures with catheters only, preventing an incision in the chest. This will allow the smallest babies to get the care they need with fewer open-chest procedures.
Read the rest of Cayden’s story here.
