Surgical treatment of congenital heart defects

We operate on highly complex heart defects such as transposition of the great arteries or hypoplastic left heart syndrome with associated malformations with a high degree of safety. We use the Norwood operation, the Yasui operation, the arterial switch operation, the double switch operation, the Senning-Rastelli operation, the Nikaidoh operation and the so-called truncal turnover operation, among others.

Our clinic specialises in the treatment of hypoplastic left heart syndrome. In this severe congenital heart defect, only one of the two heart chambers is developed. Thanks to many years of experience and intensive research, we are often able to offer our patients a high quality of life. It makes us proud and spurs us on that many of our patients are now adults.

Our clinic also specialises in special surgical procedures to correct damaged heart valves. A large number of biological and mechanical aortic valve prostheses are available for adults. However, such prostheses cannot always be used in children. Valve reconstruction is therefore a good alternative until they reach adulthood.

In many cases, we can perform heart operations at our clinic through a small incision at the side below the right arm, thus avoiding the need to cut through the sternum. This saves our patients from having to grow up with a large scar on their chest that stigmatises them as "heart disease" for the rest of their lives, even though the heart defect has long since been corrected.

A repeat operation may be necessary for various reasons. Many of these re-operations can be calculated, i.e. we already know at the time of the first operation that we will have to operate again on some of the patients. If such a follow-up operation is likely, special membranes are inserted during the initial operation to reduce scarring or protect certain implants. This makes the second operation easier and safer.