The raison d’etre for a new atlas of congenital heart surgery is based on the reality that the specialty has undergone numerous changes in the last few years resulting in improved techniques and new operations. The sheer number of new procedures and the required attendant technical skills to successfully complete an operation has become a challenge to master, especially for residents who are pursuing a career in congenital heart surgery. While the techniques that we are espousing are mostly our own, there is a great deal of similarity amongst international centers owing to the influence of video presentations, manuscript publications, and chapter reviews. We therefore believe that the techniques that are illustrated in this atlas are likely to be similar to the techniques that are taught worldwide to residents and fellows. The atlas is organized generally by diseases and procedures pertaining thereto. Two general sections involve cannulation techniques and palliative procedures, respectively. A special section depicts difficult problems in the form of clinical vignettes that may arise during cardiopulmonary bypass such as: decreased venous return, undiagnosed patent ductus arteriosus, and technical errors leading to hemodynamic complications. The reader is instructed to apply measures that will lead to resolution of these problems. We have chosen procedures, which cover the breadth of congenital heart surgery. While perhaps not totally inclusive, the reader will find the greater majority of congenital heart procedures illustrated and explained in this text.
Constantine Mavroudis is Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Site Director of Johns Hopkins Children’s Heart Surgery, Florida Hospital for Children in Orlando, Florida.
He has published over 475 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and is Editor of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, now in its 4th edition and of Atlas of Congenital Heart Surgery. In addition he has served as editor or coeditor for 6 other textbooks. He has served as Deputy Editor for Congenital Heart Surgery, Annals of Thoracic Surgery. He is a member and serves in leadership positions in the major Thoracic Surgery professional organizations. He is Past President of the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association and the Congenital Heart Surgeon’s Society. His practice attracts patients from the United States and abroad because of the expertise he has developed in complex congenital heart repairs, arrhythmia surgery, coronary artery surgery in children, and adult congenital heart interventions.
Carl L. Backer, MD, is the AC Buehler Professor of Surgery at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and Division Head of Cardiovascular-Thoracic Surgery at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. He is also director of the Heart Transplant Program, having performed over 238 transplants, the first of which was the first heart transplant at Children's Memorial Hospital on May 13, 1988 with the late Dr. Farouk S. Idriss.
Dr. Backer has authored or coauthored over 200 refereed articles, 95 book chapters, and 4 textbooks and is coeditor on two cardiac surgery textbooks: Pediatric Cardiac Surgery (2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions) and Wilcox’s Surgical Anatomy (4th edition).
Dr. Backer is immediate Past Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of the Children’s Heart Foundation, an organization that distributes over one-half million dollars per year in research grants.>
